Communication Games to experientially understand non-verbal communication

• Catching the chicken
• Non-verbal Introduction
(New - see below)

Refer to the Training Games page for some basic rules on facilitation

Let's now look at the first of the games.

Communication Game 1: 'Catching the chicken'.

1. Ask for four volunteers from the group.

2. While three of the volunteers step out of the room, ask the rest of the group to sit in a circle.

3. Ask the remaining volunteer to step into the circle and ask her to imitate the action of catching a chicken in a barn.

4. Remember this is a communication game to understand non-verbal communication.

5. Hence the volunteer has to use only actions to do this and neither she nor the rest of the participants can speak through the game. They are not to reveal the game that is going in any way to the volunteers coming into the room.

6. You will also tell them that the volunteers will come into the room and help her in her task of 'catching the chicken'.

7. Now step out of the room and send the other volunteers into the room at intervals of around one minute. When you send them in ask each of them to join their colleague in whatever they find her doing and help her out. 8. You'll see some hilarious scenes in the room.

9. After all three volunteers have come into the room and the game has continued for another minute or so, have the participants stop this communication game.

10. Beginning with the last volunteer ask her what she thought she was doing. She'll say something like 'cleaning the room', while the second last volunteer will say she was 'looking for a lost object'. The very first volunteer who walked into the room will say something like 'I was swatting a fly I think'.

11. By this time the room is echoing with laughter at the responses.

12. Finally ask the the first volunteer what she was doing. When she reveals that she was 'catching the chicken', all the participants are in a split.

13. When they have settled down a little, lead them in a debrief. In the debrief draw their attention to how it is normal for people to interpret the behaviour (non-verbal communication) of a person and respond to it rather than clarifying the communication.

14. Remind them that while the people inside were told not to speak or reveal in any way the game that was going on, the volunteers outside were not restricted in any way. Yet they chose not to ask anybody about what was going on, rather they jumped in right away and started imitating the leader.

15. This behaviour is true especially when the person who is communicating is a leader.

Let's now look at the second communication game.

Communication Game 2: 'Non-verbal introduction'.

In this game the participants are sitting in a circle. This game is about introductions, remember? So it is usually played in the beginning of a training. It does not matter how familiar or unfamiliar the participants are with each other, this communication game is an interesting way of introducing each other.

The participants are made to pair up with the person sitting next to them. They are then asked to introduce themselves to each other and give their partner some information about themselves that they believe is interesting/uncommon/unknown.

After everybody has done that, they are asked to introduce their partner to the group. There is a catch however. The participant cannot use words or props to introduce her partner. She can use only actions to do so.

There will be some very funny moments as well as shouts of triumph as participants guess correctly the interesting facts about the members of their group.

For other categories of training games go to the Training games page and follow the links.

If you would like to know more about communication games go to the Contact Us page.

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