Communication game: Non-Verbal

'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 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 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 training game 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 this training 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.
15. This behaviour is true especially when the person who is communicating is a leader.

Communication Game: Verbal

A simple game of Chinese Whispers to illustrate to students how information can be interpreted when tranfered to a number of people
How to play ''Chinese Whispers''

1. Depending on the number of people, put the players in a suitable formation that is comfortable for everyone. The usual formation is a circle or similar shape, with the players tight against the edge of the wall, but each team to their own preference.
2. Now, one person decides on a word or phrase to whisper into the ear of the person next to them. It does not matter what word or phrase is chosen.
3. The person who had the word/phrase whispered to them now passes it to the person next to them in the same way as before, and so on down the team of people.
4. When it gets to the last person to have the word/phrase whispered to them, they have to say what they think was whispered to them. If it is correct, then you may do some kind of celebration to reflect the joy of getting it right.
   On the other hand, it may be the complete opposite, or it may have metamorphosised into something totally unrelated and somewhat baffling.