Nonverbal games

Have you ever made an instant judgment about a person, without ever
speaking to him or her? Can you tell when people are worried, afraid, or
angry? Research suggests that very little of our communication is actually
verbal. About 93% of the information we give and receive is actually
nonverbal.
Through nonverbal communication, we make all kinds inferences and
decisionseven though we dont always realize it.
Its important to be aware of nonverbal messages, so we can avoid sending
and receiving unintentional messages.
Nonverbal communication causes us to make many judgments and
assumptions. The exercises that follow are designed to help you understand
how much information we transmit with nonverbal communication.
Nonverbal Activity 1: Wordless Acting
1. Separate students into groups of two.
2. Determine one student in each group as student A, and one as student B.
3. Give each student a copy of the following script.
4. Student A will read his lines out loud, but student B will communicate his
lines in a nonverbal way.
5. Provide B with a secret emotional distraction that is written on a piece of
paper. For example, student B may be in a rush, may be really bored, or may
be feeling guilty.
6. After the dialogue, ask each student A to guess what emotion was
affecting the student's partner student B.
Dialogue:
A: Have you seen my book? I cant remember where I put it.
B: Which one?
A: The murder mystery. The one you borrowed.
B: Is this it?
A: No. Its the one you borrowed.
B. I did not!
A: Maybe its under the chair. Can you look?
B: OK--just give me a minute.
A: How long are you going to be?
B: Geez, why so impatient? I hate when you get bossy.
A: Forget it. Ill find it myself.
B: WaitI found it!

Nonverbal Activity 2: We Have to Move Now!

1. Cut several strips of paper.
2. On each strip of paper, write down a mood or a disposition like guilty,
happy, suspicious, paranoid, insulted, or insecure.
3. Fold the strips of paper and put them into a bowl. They will be prompts.
4. Have each student take a prompt from the bowl and read the same
sentence to the class, expressing the mood theyve picked.
5. Students will read the sentence: "We all need to gather our possessions
and move to another building as soon as possible!"
6. Students should write down assumptions they make about each student
as they read their prompts.
Nonverbal Activity 3: Stack the Deck
For this exercise, you will need a regular pack of playing cards and a lot of
movingaround space. Blindfolds are optional (it takes a little longer).
1. Shuffle the deck of cards well and walk around the room to give each
student a card.
2. Instruct the students to keep their cards a secret. No one can see the type
or color of another's card.
3. Make it clear to students that they will not be able to talk during this
exercise.
4. Instruct students to assemble into 4 groups according to suits (hearts,
clubs, diamonds, spades) using nonverbal communication.
5. It's more fun to blindfold every student during this exercise.
6. Once students get into those groups, they must line up in order of rank,
from ace to king.
7. The group that lines up in proper order first wins!
Nonverbal Activity 4: Silent Movie
Divide students into two or more groups. For the first half of class, some
students will be screenwriters and other students will be actors. Roles will
switch for the second half.
The screenwriter students will write a silent movie scene, with the following
tips in mind:
1. Silent movies tell a story without words. It is important to start the scene
with a person doing an obvious task, like cleaning the house or rowing a
boat.
2. This scene is interrupted when a second actor (or several actors) enters
the scene. The appearance of the new actor/s has a big impact. Remember
that the new characters could be animals, burglars, children, salesmen, etc.

3. A physical commotion takes place.

4. The problem is resolved.
The acting groups will perform the script(s). Everyone sits back to enjoy the
show! Popcorn is a good addition.
This exercise gives students a great opportunity to act out and read
nonverbal messages.
http://homeworktips.about.com/od/mindandbody/a/nonverbal.htm
CATCH THE CHICKEN
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 or a training 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 training game. They are
not to reveal the training 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 roomat
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 traininggame
has continued for another minute or so, have the participants stop this
communication game or training 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 of
thistraining game. 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 training 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.
http://www.experiential-learning-games.com/communicationgames.html
Jedi Mind Trick
Direct participants to stand in a circle with one person in the middle. No
one is allowed to talk. The person in the middle wants to take the place of a
person in the circle. People in the circle want to exchange places without
becoming usurped by the person in the middle. To accomplish this,
participants need to use eye contact and other nonverbal cues to
communicate and negotiate a move.
Alphabetically
This activity challenges a group to say the letters of the alphabet in order
without ever having two participants saying the same letter at the same
time. Any sequence can be used; you may choose months, numbers
or holidays instead.
Copy Cat
Direct participants to stand in a circle. Ask each person to silently choose
a leader. They are not to tell anyone who their leader is. Explain that each
person will mimic the moves or changes in position of her leader. Before
beginning, ask each person to close her eyes and assume a pose. Eyes
should open on the director's command, and position should not be changed
except to follow one's leader. In the end, everyone will be in the same
position.
Wireless Communication
Start this activity by placing a rope on the ground. Ask the group to select
a listener. Bring that person forward 20 feet and blindfold him. He is not
allowed to speak for the remainder of the game, and he cannot move unless
directed to do so. Ask the group to select a communicator. Bring that person
forward 10 feet and turn her so she faces the group, which should be
standing on the starting line. The communicator may not turn around to look
at the listener. She is the only person in the group allowed to speak. Give the
group a set of instructions involving the use of props. For example: "Direct
the listener to put the scarf on his head, the glove on his hand and take off
his shoe." The group must communicate these instructions to the
communicator without speaking, so the communicator can tell the
blindfolded listener what to do.
Discussion Questions

 Follow-up discussion is important for these games to be effective. Some

discussion questions will be specific to the activity: How did it feel to be the
one in the middle of the circle (Jedi Mind Trick). Other discussion questions
are more general: What nonverbal cues did you use to accomplish the task?
How do nonverbal cues affect group dynamics and leadership? How can you
use this information to communicate more effectively? An experienced team
building consultant can help you get the most out of these games.
http://www.ehow.com/about_5435624_nonverbal-communication-activitiesadults.html