Emotional Intelligence/Awareness and the Classroom Environment

I am very interested in emotional intelligence and awareness in my students and how my role as a teacher can help to cultivate that for them. The way I set up my classroom environment could greatly contribute to allowing my students to better interface with each other and me, as well as help them to better understand themselves and their own emotions. I have always been a really honest/verbal person, but that has not always made me likable. I think that it would be valuable for children to learn at an early age how to communicate their own personalities and feelings to others and to be able to receive that information from their peers so as to better relate to one another and find common ground. Without a learning environment in which students can be comfortable around each other (and how can you be comfortable around someone to whom you cannot relate?) there will always be untapped potential to learn. I want my students to have every opportunity and as few hindrances to their education as a whole person as I can possibly provide, and I feel strongly that this is part of the avenue towards that goal. The exact question I will be examining is still in the works, but it may focus around implementation of a classroom practice, or it may be in a unit on learning to talk about and recognize emotion in ourselves and others and how to talk about it in a constructive way. More research needs to be done! If a classroom practice is what I end up focusing on, it would be ideal to have my cooperating teacher on board this fall so that we could try it out over an extended period of time (the only way it would really be effective anyway...) So many things to decide!