In the paper I argue that the school can be treated as the place of emotional development and educational situations cannot be described without the emotional context: each didactic situation produces emotions and sometimes these emotions can be impossible to notice. Each activity is performed by a child and a teacher with a tint of some emotions. It is them who impact the sustainability and efficiency of memorizing. It can be observed that learners (students and teachers) often have learning difficulties because their emotions related to school are negative.

The literature review reveals not only lack of adequate scientific interest in the role of emotions in teaching and learning in the context of school, but lack of research on the effectiveness of the programme devoted to the development of teacher's emotional competences. We can find numerous single studies related to these problems. However, there are no regular research studies carried out by experts in issues of emotions in the field of education, especially concerning issues of development of teacher's emotional competences and the role of these competences in improving teaching. This is evident when we review educational literature related to the subject. It can be noticed that authors concentrate mostly on accounting for the role of emotions in learning by students and they overlook the importance of emotional education of teachers, who – in this context - seem to be a neglected group.

The paper presents emerging findings from a two-year project on teacher emotional competences and the ways in which they can be developed. Firstly, the notion of emotional competence is defined. It is shown that emotional competences can be understood as skills acquired in the course of one’s development, which are of different degree of intensity in different individuals and vital for their emotional functioning. Secondly, the way in which teacher's emotional competences can be described is presented. I reveal the central elements of teacher's emotional competence, then I present a structure of this competence. Thirdly, I focus on the basic principles of international educational project EL4VET: Teachers First - Using Emotional Literacy to Improve VET Teaching in the 21st Century, in the implementation of which is involved University of Lodz.  

Lately, some findings of a small part of s larger research study designed to examine the perceptions of teachers concerning the usefulness of the emotional literacy programme in enhancing teachers ability to the benefit of their schools and their students are presented. Teachers were asked to evaluate the usefulness of the programme they completed by considering whether acquired knowledge and skills obtained during the programme affected their practice in their school workplace. By asking teachers to provide examples of ways in which they had applied gained knowledge in practice, an opportunity to explore the process of transference of programme learning to practical experience in the school setting was created.

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