Non-verbal communication is one of the most underestimated and
hard-to-master skills today. People claim that they have a lot of
charisma and can charm people very well with their words: however, if
they do not control their body language, they could be disappointed with
the results. There are many different ways to explore non-verbal
communication. Hiring professional trainers to deliver conferences or
workshops on the subject is a possibility, but if you cannot afford it,
there are other ways! For teachers that would like to explore the
subject with their young students, for example, playing games on the
subject could be a very good way to do so. Here are a few examples of
games that will help to stimulate the interest for non-verbal
communication.
Acting an emotion
For this activity, you will only need some strips of paper and a bowl. You will write different emotions on the strips of paper: happy, sad, suspicious, afraid, any emotion will do it. Then, each of the students will pick a paper and will therefore be attributed an emotion. On the board, you can then write a pretty generic sentence. For example, you could choose the following sentence: "I am very excited to go the movie theatre tonight!" The goal for the students will be to make the others guess what emotion they are trying to depict only by reading the sentence out loud and trying to act the emotion. An angry student could cross his arms and stop smiling, for example. Students that try to guess the emotion should justify their answer using what they intuitively know about body language.
Making some dialogues
Another way to set up an activity could be by placing students in pairs of two and by giving them pre-written situations. One of the actors could be speaking and the others would not be allowed to talk, but would still have to say, or show in this case, his lines. It should not be a very complicated dialogue: the silent student could have sentences such as "Please calm down" or "I do not know what you are talking about", which can be acted pretty easily using gestures. This activity will show them that a lot of things can actually be said without saying a word.
If you are interested, you could also design a simple non verbal test, to see how much they already know. Non-verbal communication is not an easy concept to approach with young kids, but there are some fun ways of doing so. By awakening their interest in this subject while they are young, you could greatly contribute to shaping their future by improving their communication skills, which are essential in today's job market - and in life in general, of course.
Acting an emotion
For this activity, you will only need some strips of paper and a bowl. You will write different emotions on the strips of paper: happy, sad, suspicious, afraid, any emotion will do it. Then, each of the students will pick a paper and will therefore be attributed an emotion. On the board, you can then write a pretty generic sentence. For example, you could choose the following sentence: "I am very excited to go the movie theatre tonight!" The goal for the students will be to make the others guess what emotion they are trying to depict only by reading the sentence out loud and trying to act the emotion. An angry student could cross his arms and stop smiling, for example. Students that try to guess the emotion should justify their answer using what they intuitively know about body language.
Making some dialogues
Another way to set up an activity could be by placing students in pairs of two and by giving them pre-written situations. One of the actors could be speaking and the others would not be allowed to talk, but would still have to say, or show in this case, his lines. It should not be a very complicated dialogue: the silent student could have sentences such as "Please calm down" or "I do not know what you are talking about", which can be acted pretty easily using gestures. This activity will show them that a lot of things can actually be said without saying a word.
If you are interested, you could also design a simple non verbal test, to see how much they already know. Non-verbal communication is not an easy concept to approach with young kids, but there are some fun ways of doing so. By awakening their interest in this subject while they are young, you could greatly contribute to shaping their future by improving their communication skills, which are essential in today's job market - and in life in general, of course.
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