Unit 6
De-escalation 2:
Communication
6a)
Communicating Your Side
Goals:
The students will…
- Be introduced to the importance of good communication skills in resolving conflicts in their own lives.
- Demonstrate the practical application of those skills.
- Explore the different ways in which people communicate without speaking, and the impact this behavior can have in a conflict.
- Learn to recognize and modify what their own tone of voice or body language can communicate in a conflict, and recognize these meanings in other people’s behavior.
- Learn and practice “I-speak” as means of expressing their needs in a positive and non-accusatory way.
- Realize that good communication is essential to getting what they want.
- Understand the need for good communication in order to avert misunderstandings.
- Relate good communication to the strategies for dealing with conflict discussed in Unit 3: people need to communicate in order to figure out the goals involved on each side of a conflict, so they can figure out which strategy to use and how to best use it.
- Accomplish the personal goal for your classroom for today:________________________ ________________________________________________________________________
The volunteers will…
- Practice their own communication skills with the students.
Materials
- Body Language and Charades “feelings cards.”
- Anita-and-Marie skits, enough copies for the whole class.
- I-statements worksheets, enough copies for whole class.
Methods
I. Opening activity: Engage the Students: Birthday Line (10 minutes)
II. Discussion: What is Communication? (10 minutes)
III. Silent Communication: Body Language and Tone of Voice (20 minutes)
IV. Expressing What You Want: Learning How to Communicate Verbally: I-Speak (20 minutes)
V. Closing Activity: Evaluation Questions (2 minutes)
Preparation
- Make charades “feelings cards” by cutting out the words from the sheet in the materials section.
- Make enough copies of I-statements worksheets for entire class.
- Familiarize yourself with the procedure of “I-speak” and how to use it.
- Read through this lesson completely and familiarize yourself with the main points.
I. Opening Activity: Engage the Students:
Birthday Line
(Estimated time: 10 minutes)
Volunteer leading this activity _________________________________
Estimated time for your class to complete this activity ______________________
Activity Goals:
- To help students focus and concentrate.
- To explore communicating without talking.
This game demands that the students work together to solve a problem without talking at all. It is very important to emphasize that talking is not allowed, and that students must find alternate ways of communicating necessary information about when everyone’s birthdays are.
- Have all of the students get in a line in order of their birthdays. The trick is that the students cannot communicate verbally to accomplish the goal.
- You may help the students by telling them where the first person born in January and the last person born in December should stand, but make sure they do not talk!
If the students can’t line up by birthdays, stop the game and ask them for suggestions about how they could accomplish the task.
- Using their fingers to indicate which month they were born in and the date of that month works well. Don’t be surprised if some students ask you which number corresponds to their month.
II.
Discussion: What is
Communication?
(estimated time: 10 minutes)
Volunteer Leading this activity
_________________________________________
Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________
Activity Goals:
- Discuss what communication is and why it is important.
- Connect
communication to the game the students just played.
- Discover what the students already know and think about communication.
- Have students come up with important points about communication themselves so that they begin to draw upon their existing assumptions of communication and are prepared to learn new things.
- Discuss other non-verbal methods of communication.
- Introduce the importance of good communication in problem-solving and conflict-resolution.
Introduce communication through what the kids just did in the game:
- Did the game work? Why or why not?
- If not, how could it have worked?
- Communication! Good listening. Concentration. Using or paying attention to body
language.
- What
made the game hard? How did you
overcome those challenges?
- Through
communicating more effectively, concentrating, etc.
- Have
several students explain their strategies in the game. How did communication help you in this
game?
Introduce the general topic of communication. Make sure to cover the following topics in this discussion, and
throughout the lesson:
- What
are different ways in which humans communicate with each other? Try to have students come up with
examples such as:
§
spoken language
§
writing
§
internet
§
touch
§
body language
§
eye contact
§
voice inflection, tone of voice
- How can good communication be helpful in solving problems in conflicts? Connect communication to how you solved the problem in the game you just played.
- Remember the conflict-solving strategies we discussed in lesson 3, such as compromising and problem-solving? How can communicating effectively with someone help you figure out the best strategy for dealing with a conflict? In other words, how does communicating help you negotiate well?
- Communication helps people realize each other’s goals, because it allows them to state those goals clearly to one another. Without understanding what another person wants, or being able to explain what you want, it is not possible to reach a solution.
- It also helps people understand the impact a given strategy would have on their relationship with the each other: someone should be able to express how much it would, say, hurt their feelings or cause future problems if the other person, say, refused to compromise with them, or just walked away from the situation.
- Do you communicate differently with different types of people?
- Consider a Father, Mother, brother, sister, friend, teacher, famous person, the government
- Why do people bother to communicate? If people communicate well, can they accomplish more? Like what?
- For example, scientists communicate and therefore build on what others have done. Communication allows us to work together, share information, share feelings, come up with newer and better ideas.
- How can communication help you get what you want?
- How
can communication cause a misunderstanding? How can careful communication help you avoid a
misunderstanding?
- If you don’t communicate carefully, taking into account what the other person knows, they might misunderstand you. But if you don’t bother to communicate or if you don’t communicate well, you can create misunderstandings because other people don’t know what you know.
- What are some other ways people communicate besides talking?
- Body language
- Tone of voice
- Through actions
- By writing letters to the government
- Over the radio
- Through artwork, theater, creative writing
- Touch
- Eye contact
III. Silent
Communication: Body Language and Tone of Voice
(estimated time: 20 minutes)
Volunteer Leading this activity
_________________________________________
Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________
Activity Goals:
- Demonstrate the importance of body language and tone of voice in communicating.
- Make students aware of what body language and tone of voice they’re using when, what gestures go with what emotions, and what message it sends to people.
- Make students aware of the meanings of similar body language and tone of voice in others.
- Discuss how body language and tone of voice can play a role in escalating and de-escalating conflicts.
This game can be played in small groups as well.
Tell the students that now that they have mastered good listening, the class is going to play a game that talks about other ways of communicating: body language and tone of voice.
BODY LANGUAGE CHARADES
Ahead of time, you should put 3x5 cards or slips of paper with emotion words on them in a bag.
Students volunteer to act out an emotion.
- They pick without looking from the bag and silently act out the emotion.
- Don’t let the volunteer say their word out loud before acting it out!
- The class must guess which emotion it is.
- Make sure the class raise their hands to guess instead of yelling the answer out.
- The volunteer continues acting until the class guesses correctly or gives up.
HEY YOU! TONE OF
VOICE CHARADES
This game is played the same way as charades, except students volunteer to choose from the remaining emotion cards, and then take turns saying “hey you!” (or any phrase that the students choose to be funny, or just saying the letters of the alphabet) to the class in a tone that suggests that emotion. The class guesses what the emotion is.
Have a brief discussion:
- How were you able to identify what emotions people were expressing through their body language and tone of voice?
- Were some emotions easy to identify than others? Why?
- Why is it important to be able to identify these emotions in someone’s body language or tone of voice when you’re in a conflict with him/her?
- What kind of information can you get from body language and tone of voice?
- What kinds of body language and tone of voice make it easiest to communicate with someone else?
- Which tones of voice and body language are escalators in a conflict?
- Dominating pose, glaring, yelling, etc.
- Which are de-escalators?
- Smiling, looking the other person in the eye attentively, speaking slowly and softly.
- Can unintentional body language or tone of voice ever get you in trouble?
- How can you use body language or tone of voice to your advantage?
- To
communicate better – so you’re more likely to get what you want.
- Some drama teachers say that “The majority (70%) of what you say is not said in words.” After doing this activity, do you think this is true?
IV. Expressing
What You Want: Learning How to
Communicate Verbally: I-Speak
(estimated time: 25 minutes)
Volunteer Leading this activity
_________________________________________
Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________
Activity Goals:
- Show how I-speak is the most effective way of communicating what you want.
- Learn the difference between “I-speak” and “you-speak” and show how using I-speak is usually more appropriate in de-escalating a conflict.
- Learn how to use I-speak.
- Practice applying I-speak to practical problem-solving situations.
In this activity, it is important to continuously make I-speak appealing to the students by explaining how using it can help them get what they want from another person, or at least work out an agreement that both people are happy with.
- Tell the students that now we are dealing with making ourselves understood better by others.
- Tell the students that you’re going to give them two phrases and you want them to figure out the difference.
- One teacher: “You guys never pay attention. You have to be quiet right now.”
- The other teacher: “I’m getting upset by your lack of attention because I know you’re capable of better behavior. I need you to be quiet so I can continue teaching this lesson now.”
- Once the students have figured out the difference, explain that this demonstrates the difference between what we call “You-speak” and “I-speak”.
Ask students which statement would most make them want to change their behavior, and make them the least angry with their teacher. Why?
- The
you-statement accuses them and makes them want to respond with a
counter-accusation.
- The I-statement explains why you want them to be quiet, and tells them they’re capable of doing better.
Have students brainstorm more differences between the “You-statement” and “I-statement” they just heard. Make two columns on the board comparing the two:
You-Statements
**Make unfair/untrue generalizations about the other person (e.g., “You guys never…”).
Accusatory.
Negative.
Focus only on what the other person has done wrong.
Do not explain your reasons behind what you’re asking them to do.
Tend to escalate conflicts: make listener “fight back” rather than work out the problem.
I-Statements
More Positive.
Explain HOW you feel, WHY you feel that way, and WHAT you want.
Open up avenues for reaching an agreement and solution and finding common ground (through each person clearly explaining what they want).
Make sure students understand why I-statements are more effective in communicating needs, and discuss the merits of using them instead of you-statements in resolving conflict.
Go over the basic format of phrasing statements in I-speak (write on board):
Tell the students they will have an opportunity to see two sides of the same story that show different ways people can talk about a problem (you-speak and I-speak). Tell the students to listen carefully for the kinds of words the actors use and how they express their feelings about one another.
Ask for two volunteers: ask one to be Marie and one Anita in the first skit. Have them read the first skit out loud in front of the class. Ask the class:
- How does Marie feel about Anita?
- How does Anita feel about Marie?
- Do you think Anita is going to stop spreading rumors about Marie? Why or why not?
Ask for two more volunteers and assign roles from the second skit. After they read the second skit, ask the class again:
- How does Marie feel about Anita?
- How does Anita feel about Marie?
- Do you think Anita is going to stop spreading rumors about Marie? Why or why not?
Ask the class what was different in the way Marie communicated with Anita in the two skits and which style was more effective. Help the students identify the first skit as containing You-statements and the second skit as containing I-statements.
Give out worksheets to each student and tell them they will spend most of the rest of the class practicing changing You-statements to I-statements. Depending on the class, the kids can either do this individually at their seats, or out loud as a class.
- Clearly go over the instructions at the top of the sheet and make sure the students understand what to do BEFORE they begin.
- If the students are doing the sheets individually, go around to each desk and make sure they are not having too much trouble.
- Depending on the class, either collect the sheets, correct them, and hand them back the next week; or, go over the answers as a class.
V. Closing
Activity: Evaluation Questions
(estimated time: 2 minutes)
Volunteer Leading this activity
_________________________________________
Estimated time for your class to complete this activity _______________________
Activity Goals:
- To review the skills and concepts discussed in the lesson.
What were some of the aspects of communication you learned about
today and how will they help you work out problems and de-escalate conflicts?
- I-speak
- Body
language
- Tone
of voice
- How does I-Speak help you to solve a conflict?
- I-speak
helps you express your own point of view.
- What
else do you need to solve conflicts?
- Other
people’s points of view.
Tell the students
that you will talk about listening to what the other person has to say next
week. These are the two big parts of
communication: expressing yourself, and
listening to the other person.
BEFORE YOU GO:
- Tell the class when you will be coming next
- Talk with the classroom teacher about how the lesson went.
- Write notes for yourselves on how the different activities went.
MATERIALS:
- Body Language and Charades “feelings cards” for Silent Communication: Body Language and Tone of Voice.
- Anita-and-Marie skits for Expressing What You Want: Learning How to Communicate Verbally: I-Speak.
- Enough copies for the whole class.
- I-statements worksheets for Expressing What You Want: Learning How to Communicate Verbally: I-Speak.
- Double-sided copies, enough copies for whole class.
Body Language Charades and Hey You!: Emotion Cards