Talking Heads

Games for developing Communication Skills

Talking Heads

Aim

: Talking Heads is a group activity presented as a board game or a pack of cards.Designed to help young students talk more effectively about themselves, the gamehas been adapted from the version originally featured in the CRAC Breakout Seriesand has a career-awareness focus.

Contents

Introductory notesThe Talking Heads board (or poster) in 2 A4 sheets4 A4 sheets of cards illustrated with faces4 A4 sheets of cards with topics (for backing the above)

Board Game

Materials

: One Talking Heads poster or board per group of six to eight pupils. Onedice and one clock or stopwatch per group.

Procedure

: The playing area lists 36 topics and players take turns to select and talkon a topic for an agreed length of time. Selection is made by two throws of the dice.The first throw identifies the row and the second throw identifies the column.

Rules

: Depending on the age range and ability of the pupils, a brief answer is notenough; the speaker must provide a reason for his or her response and must avoidusing certain phrases and expressions.

Scoring

Redsquares: 5 pointsBluesquares: 4 pointsGreensquares: 3 points

Penalties

Failure to speak on a topic or duplicating an earlier answer: no score

Failure to provide an adequate explanation: lose one point

OK, boring, basically, actually, ummm, you know: lose one point.

Winner

. The player with the highest score after an agreed number of turns. Thescoring procedure and rules may be simpliﬁed according to the age and ability of thegroup. As an alternative, two or three pupils could work in teams rather than asindividuals.

Card Game

The card version consists of 36 cards with illustration of young people on one sideand the topics on the other. If desired, tutors can paste their own topics on the backof the cards. With the side featuring the topics concealed from the group, the cardsare selected at random and the procedure can follow the one suggested for the boardgame.The words:

What? Why? When? How? Where? Who?

are found on the topic side of the cards. These serve as memory joggers to help pupils extend their responses andare taken from Rudyard Kipling’s

Just So Stories

I kept six honest serving men,(they taught me all I knew);Their namers are What and Why and When.and How and Where and Who.

Review

: Discuss the topics that the pupils had most difﬁculty in talking about. Askthem to identify the speech difﬁculties that occurred most frequently during thecourse of the game and to consider ways in which these might be improved.TC 6/09