Perhaps the most important contribution a teacher can make to the emotional environment, however, is his own approach. By becoming sensitive to the views and circumstances of each member, he can try to make everyone feel that they are of importance and can try to minimize the inevitable inequalities of status and background. By his own good humour, by patience, courtesy and tact, and by cheerful enthusiasm he can ease the frictions and keep fears and antagonisms to the minimum. To make the conversation effective he has to secure a real equality of status within the group, at any rate for the period of meeting, and he can help this by setting an example, helping the group to achieve its objectives but not dominating it or allowing any member to do so. Trying to get class members to feel free and equal, especially when they may not want to be, is a delicate process dependent often on split second decisions; the teacher therefore should not be unduly worried by failures, as he will merely increase them by introducing his own tensions. A practical measure which he can take in most classes is to provide opportunities for introductions and for contact between class members. People guard their conversation and act defensively if they feel that they are among strangers, and with a little planning and forethought a leader can get them to know each other fairly quickly. Some teachers in fact devote much of the first class meeting of the session to this process and regard it as time well spent.