Telephone (A Classic):
Description:
The students sit in a circle and one student begins by whispering a message in to the ear of the student beside them. The goal is to pass the whispered message the whole way around the circle and have it come back to the original speaker unchanged. The reality is that this very rarely happens. Often the message is quite distorted and hilarious. A great ice breaker that involves memory and active listening.
Application:
This is a good way to break the ice as it gets the students talking to each other and quite often laughing and trying to figure out where the breakdown took place. The other benefits of telephone are active listening and short term memory access. The game is quick and you can only hear the message once so it requires you to listen, retain and share information quickly with out loosing too much. Telephone is a classic but it is always a lot of fun.
Variations:
- You can allow the students to ask the operator once- that means one student can hear the message twice.
- You can use telephone to talk about the misinformation that comes from hearsay and rumours.
Notes:
Will Whitten 