Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 6; November 03

Meeting people reflectively

Level:

Ask the students to stand in a circle. Tell them to spend one minute looking round the circle and getting a feeling of each person, noticing what they are wearing etc….

Ask the students to sit down. They close their eyes and remember what they saw and felt. In this inward-turned state they see, feel and hear the other people in the group.

Ask the students to stand up again. This time they are to walk around without getting eye contact with other people. Ask them to feel, see and hear the other people.

Ask them to come back into a standing circle and shut their eyes. Tell them that different people are to say a sentence each about the recent weather. First one person speaks and then the next and so on. ( The focus here is on the voices in the group.)

Ask the students to open their eyes and move around. Tell them they are to shake hands with at least six people. During the handshake they temporarily close their eyes.

Ask them to sit down again, shut their eyes and mentally review the previous phases of the exercise.

In the last phase of the activity they open their eyes and tell two partners about their experiences during the different phases.

Acknowledgement: we learnt this exercise from Marisa Hoslet, on a Summer 2003 NLP course at Pilgrims