Communication Skills Ideas...

Below is a compilation of all the ideas that were sent in response to one of 
my communication skills ideas.  Thanks to those of you that contributed!

Nancy

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Nancy Murphy Brink
Director, Mentoring Resource Center
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Miami
phone: 305-441-9062, fax: 305-441-2020
MentoringResourceCenter@hotmail.com
www.wementor.org - click on "MRC"

MENTORING RESOURCE CENTER MISSION:
"We are committed to building the capacity and increasing the quality of 
mentoring service providers in Miami-Dade County."

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COMMUNICATION SKILLS IDEAS...

"J. Allan Tyler" <jatyler@erols.com>
Dear Nancy:
I was forwarded your request. I work for WAVE, Inc.,an organization that 
helps youth professionals all over the country provide engaging training to 
youth. Give me a call and I should be able to share some ideas with you that 
have worked for us in communication skill development sessions.
  J. Tyler   202 484 0103 ext 3043

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Greater Homewood <ghcc@greenmount.org>
I use an ice-breaker called "Stop & Go" conversations that is fun and most 
useful when a discussion is held afterwards.  How it works: folks get in 
groups of three.  Everyone chooses a "topic" out of a hat.  I've done this 
by putting an opinion or topic on a slip of paper that can include a 
"personality."  For example: "You think Venus Williams is an inspiration to 
girls everywhere and you want everyone in the room to sign a petition for 
more sports activities at your school."  or "You are hooked on the 
television show Survivor." or "You think meat eaters are evil."
From there, folks choose two "talkers" and a "clapper" in their group.
Using the topic on their slip of paper, one "talker" starts speaking to the 
other about their topic.  The third person "clapper" claps their hands to 
cut off the speaker and cue the other speaker to begin talking about their 
topic.  The clapper claps as often as they wish to interrupt and cue the 
other to begin.  After a few minutes, they groups switch roles, so the 
clapper has a chance to be a talker.  They can also change topics if they 
want for round two.
It's a fun exercise (folks are always laughing) and also interesting in
discussion afterwards to hear how people responded to being interrupted, to 
their topics, and mostly what they learned from this, which hopefully is 
that you can't listen or communicate when you are in fear of being cut-off 
at any moment and concerned only with making your point and not hearing the 
other person's.
If this isn't clear, I would be happy to send you the materials I've used in 
the past to do this.  I work with a team of AmeriCorps*VISTA members whose 
ages range from 19 to 40.  We loved it.

P.S.  I'm originally from Miami.  So good to hear of positive things going 
on down there!

Tamara Rain Neff
VISTA Leader
GHCC
410-261-3501
Baltimore, Maryland

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Vicki McEvoy <mcev0013@tc.umn.edu>
Nancy Murphy Brink,

In response to your list-serve question about activities.  I just spent
a week-end training session for challenge course facilitation and had an 
enjoyable time with these activities:

Name Games:

Everyone stands in a circle holding hands, so circle is complete.  There is 
either a hula hoop or a deflated bike innertube hanging from the leaders 
arm.  This prop gets passed around, without letting go of
hands.  As each person struggles through the hoop they have to say their 
name and one or two things about themselves.

Standing in a circle again.  The leader starts with a tennis ball,
throws it to the person across from them, saying their name.  The ball
gets thrown randomly, person to person, with the person throwing the
ball saying the name of the person catching the ball.  Everyone catches
it once.  The challenge becomes to see how quickly the ball can be
passed around, following the same order, and not be dropped.  Another
challenge is to keep adding balls to the mix, so there are multiple
balls being thrown.  Of course, they don't all have to be balls, throw
in a stuffed elephant or maybe a rubber chicken.

Initiative Games:
Traffic Jam,  This works well with about 10 people.  Line up mats in a
row, one mat for each person, plus one extra mat.  Five people on one
side line up facing the middle, five people line up on the other end,
facing the middle.  Mat in the middle is empty, groups are facing each
other.  Each person can move forward, but you cannot step back.  You can 
move forward one step  to empty mat.  Or you can step around one person to 
empty mat behind them.  But two people cannot exchange places.  Each line 
must stay in their original order (you cannot step around someone going in 
the same direction as yourself).  The challenge is to get everyone from one 
side to the other side.
Make a Shape.  Everyone (except leader) is blindfolded.  They are given
a long length of rope, the ends are not tied.  The challenge is to make
as good a square as possible, while blindfolded.  Just make sure the
area is safe and people won't trip.
Ball in a Basket.  Lay a long rope on the floor in an hour glass shape.
This is a swamp that no one can step into.  There is a basket in one
side.  The other side has a tennis ball that is sitting on a metal ring
(ring is about 2/3 circumference of tennis ball).  There is one piece of 
string for each participant attached to this ring. (Use very narrow
string).  Each person holds one end of the string and together they lift the 
ball with the ring and transport it and drop it into the basket.

End Processing:
Have a variety of pictures that are laminated.  Each person gets to pick a 
picture and then explain how this picture represents... the way they feel 
about the workshop...how their week has been going....what they think about 
mentoring... just about anything that you ask them to talk about.
Or you can have a grab bag of odds and ends of toys.  People get to pick the 
toy of choice and explain why they picked these toys.

The initiative games are really good to get people talking about problem 
solving and cooperating.

These games are from either Quicksilver or Silver Bullets, both can be
ordered from Kendall/Hunt Publishing.  Both books have plenty of games,
name games, trust building games, initiatives, etc.  You can find them
at
http://www.kendallhunt.com/cgi-bin/catsearch.cmd?product=general

I hope some of these ideas are useful.  Please e-mail me if you have any 
questions about the instructions, or if you would like different ideas.

Vicki McEvoy
Information Specialist
National Service-Learning Clearinghouse
1-800-808-7378

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“Sylvia King" <SKING1@boisestate.edu>
I have one activity on listening, paraphrasing and observing in 
communication. It goes something like this. Put students (adults) in groups 
of three. One student is the sender, one is the receiver and one is the 
observer. The sender tells a story (about 5 minutes or less) about an event 
that happened in their life - something funny, sad, interesting, 
life-chaning, ironic, etc. The receiver listens to the story. The observer 
jots down notes as to how the sender and receiver are interacting. How is 
the listener showing that he is listening:
eye contact, body language, giving feedback, nodding, responding. Is the 
listener listening. Do the interrupt? Or is the interruption appropriate, 
i.e. do they clarify info they've heard. Do they paraphrase for 
clarification? At the end of the story, does the listener ask questions or 
make comments about the story to further demonstrate he understands and is 
interested?How about the
sender? Is the sender enthusiastic about the story. Is he open and honest. 
What about his body language and eye contact? etc. After this is done, for 
about five more minutes, the observer tells the other participants what he 
saw. He tells how he observed that the listner was listening or not and how 
the sender presented the story and how the interaction worked. This is a 
good way for the sender and receiver to get feedback on how they 
communication in the roles of sender and receiver. Then the activity is 
repeated until each participant has
had a chance to practice each role.

Another one for paraphrasing practice....... is to give each adult a short 
3-sentence or so paragraph to read. It can be something about history, 
trivia, facts about science, art.. whatever. In this case you might want to 
have little paragraphs of facts or infor about mentoring kids to make it a 
practice as well as informative. This is a good icebreaker as well as good 
ole telephone.
Anyway, each person has a strip of paragraph with some info on it. You can 
play music and have people just kind of wonder around, trying to get near 
people they haven't talked to yet. When the music stops, each person finds 
the one who is nearest to them and they partner up for that moment. One 
person reads the information from their paragraph. Then, the listener 
paraphrases in his/own words what the
info is. Then the process is reversed so that each person has a chance to 
hear and then paraphrase the info that the partner is holding. After about a 
minute, everyone should be done and the music can start again for new 
partners to find each other. Depending on your group size, this can take 
however long you thing.

Sylvia King - Service-Learning Program Graduate Assistant
Boise State University, Idaho
208-426-1004
sking1@boisestate.edu
servlern@boisestate.edu

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"Scheideberg, Donna " <ScheidebergD@health.missouri.edu>

One thing that is fun is having people cut words out of a newspaper and
attaching them to a paperbag.  On the outside goes the words that people 
describe you as being or doing, on the inside are the words of how you see 
yourself.

Another thing is a potlatch.  Everyone brings a small item in that says
something about themselves (like a key chain from their organization, a
coffee cup with their name or logo, a baby bottle if a new mother, etc). 
They introduce themselves with a name and tell why the article they brought 
is about them.

Donna

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