Jabber Talk

Objectives

• The learner can use intonation to enforce communication.
• The learner can use communication strategies, such as non-verbal communication.

Instructions

• Start talking gibberish as an introduction to this exercise, using non-verbal communication to underline your message (body language, intonation, facial expressions).
• Ask the learners what they think you are talking about.
• Divide the group into pairs.
• Tell them that one learner is going to tell something in a self-created, unclear language or in his/her mother tongue.
• The other learner has to translate his/her interpretation into the target language.
• Let them switch roles.
• Ask them to evaluate while practicing:
  How are you doing?
  What is difficult?
  Which division of roles suits you best?
• The pairs practice the best division of roles before presenting their ‘act’ to the whole group.

Variant

• Give the learners a specific word or situation, e.g.
  pepper, elephant’, motor cycle …
  One learner wants to steal a phone and the other doesn’t like it.
  One learner tells an exciting story and the other does not believe it.
  One learner wants to leave together on a scooter and the other does not.

Closing Up

Evaluate the importance of non-verbal communication: use of voice (tempo, pitch, duration, colour) and body language, and why one act was easier to understand than another.