Top 7 communication activities examples

This blog consists of the basics, importance, and benefits of communication followed by the various examples of communication activities that you could try to enhance aspects of your personal, social and professional life.

The various communication activities examples are:

• Two truths and a lie 
• Card pieces 
• Back to back drawing
• Role-playing
• The name game 
• Popcorn storytelling 
• Blindfold game 

What is communication?

Communication is the exchange of information through means of speech, writing, and other non-verbal mediums, to produce greater understanding.

Communication is one of the most basic components that constitute how we interact with other people.

It can be done verbally- through daily conversations, writing (books, magazines, websites), visual (graphs, maps, charts), or non-verbal cues (gestures, voice tone, body language).

Basics of Communication

The basics of communication include:

• Taking turns and being empathetic during the conversation
• Using respectful vocabulary and keeping the conversation as healthy as possible
• Practicing in a natural setting to raise confidence in social situations
• Pausing while communicating to improve listening and clarifying skills

Importance and benefits of communication

• Effective communication enables conveying how you are feeling, your needs, and your boundaries. This can also result in high levels of self-efficacy.
• It brings down the possibility of violence and instills empathy and compassion in individuals.
• It also increases the levels of emotional intelligence, mental well-being.
• Setting boundaries through effective communication can build the skill of assertively communicating. 
• This enables individuals to communicate how they are feeling and their needs but by being mindful of the other person at the same time.

How to improve your communication

• Active listening- Listening is a very important skill to facilitate effective communication. Paying close attention, rephrasing, and asking questions can enable a greater sense of understanding.
• Non-verbal communication- While communicating your gestures, facial expressions and tone give out a lot more apart from everything that you’re trying to communicate verbally. 

Being aware of all these aspects by limiting hand gestures, maintaining eye contact, and keeping a good posture can really help make a good first impression.

• Confidence- Being confident in a conversation might capture people’s attention and make them want to listen to what you are saying.
  

By maintaining eye contact, relaxed body stance, and by maintaining a well-paced tone can be simple ways of confidently being able to communicate.

• Managing your emotions- being able to manage your emotions and knowing where to express these emotions appropriately with the right level of intensity is an important aspect.

• Feedback- Being open to and asking for feedback is another effective way to communicate better. 

Asking your peers and friends for feedback and making use of them constructively to work upon your communication can help in building communication skills.

• Concise- conveying your message in a crisp, and making it to the point can avoid the listener from getting confused.

• Public speaking- grabbing any opportunity to speak in front of an audience and being able to articulate your feelings and thoughts can help improve communication. 

It helps in magnifying your potential and brings down hesitation and self-doubt to a large extent.

Communication activity examples

The various communication activities examples that can help in improving your communication are:

• Two truths and a lie 
• Card pieces 
• Back to back drawing
• Role-playing 
• The name game 
• Popcorn storytelling 
• Blindfold game

These activities are not just helpful but also really fun and you could implement them with your friends, peers, family, and co-workers.

These can be used as possible icebreaker activities to initiate conversation and effective communication in new groups.

Two truths and a lie

Directions- This activity requires five or more people. Each person is asked to come up and state three facts about themselves among which two statements are true and one is a lie.

The lie should not stand out and should be plausible. After the person reads their list out the rest of the group is encouraged to guess the statements that are true and point out the lie.

Benefits- This helps improve communication and also increases the level of sharing and makes the environment fun, making it easier for those who hesitate to communicate in groups.

Card pieces

Materials required:

• Nine people or more
• Playing cards cut into triangular shape
• Envelope

Directions- Minimum of three teams with three to four members in each team. 

An envelope with the cut-out cards will be handed over to each team. 8- 10 minutes will be given to each team to barter their card pieces with that of the other teams so as to complete their cards. 

The team, who completes the most number of cards, wins.

Benefits- This game helps in building negotiation skills and empathy that in turn classify as the key components of effective communication.

Accepting loss, trying to understand another person’s perspective, and being able to communicate this effectively during the course of a short span can increase communication.

Back-to-back drawing

 Materials required:

• Even number of people
• Pen
• Paper
• Whiteboard

Directions- all the members of the group are paired and are made to either sit or stand with their backs facing each other. One person will take the role of the speaker who will give out instructions and the other member will be in charge of drawing. 

The speaker is asked to describe the geometric image in the prepared set of cards designated to them and the listener will draw the image, solely based on the instructions received from the speaker’s description. 

The listener (the person who is drawing) is not allowed to speak or ask doubts during the course of this communication activity.

Benefits- This activity shows that effective communication takes place only when both parties are equally invested but it can also take place through active listening. 

Patiently listening to the instructions and being able to comprehend without asking questions is a difficult task but this activity does inculcate effective communication and listening skills and cooperation.

Roleplaying

Directions- This communication activity takes place in pairs. After pairs are made in the group, the members are asked to brainstorm and think of situations where they feel as though they could have been more assertive. 

Each of the members in the pair can take turns to play their situation.

Benefits- This can help in giving an understanding of where s/he went wrong or could have possibly communicated and clarified things in a more assertive manner. 

Since the situation isn’t really as uncomfortable as having the conversation with the person in conflict this gives more understanding and seeing things from a different light.

The name game

This communication activity requires the group to be split into pairs. Each participant is asked to think of a famous personality and write it down on a post-it.

The post-it is then placed on the partner’s forehead. The person with the post-it has to ask questions and get answers. 

Each pair gets 5 minutes to guess the personality mentioned on the post-it. 

Benefits- This communication-based activity enables members to ask the right kind of questions to receive answers. 

The trick here is to figure out how to frame a question (open-ended or closed-ended) and receive responses. Asking questions is an integral part of communication.

Popcorn storytelling

Directions- This activity is suitable for all age groups. The members of the group, preferably 7-8 members are asked to sit in a circle and the first member can start with a sentence of their choice, and leave it hanging midway.

Each member gets to complete the sentence and leave the next line midway and this, in turn, can form a meaningful story or take a turn and not make much sense depending on how the members take it forward.

Benefits- This communication activity is a great demonstration of making use of active listening skills. 

This activity also creates a sense of understanding within the group and this, in turn, leads to the story building up depending on how well each of them is able to communicate what they want to in a concise and crisp manner as they get to say only halves of two sentences.

The blindfold game

Materials required

• Four or more participants
• Blindfolds
• Obstacles such as chairs, boxes, etc

Directions- Obstacles are constructed in the room/ open area and the group is divided into pairs. 

One of the members of the pair is blindfolded and the second member is required to navigate. 

The second member needs to call out directions to the one who is blindfolded and they are supposed to make it to the finish line without tripping and falling down.

Benefits- This communication-based activity encourages active listening, cooperation, trust and these are basic components of effective communication. 

This activity is suitable for all age groups and can be demonstrated with friends or even family.

These activities can be fun and interactive and can really help you in building effective communication skills without being able to feel pressured to do so.

Conclusion:

In this blog, we looked into the top seven communication activities and discussed the basics, importance, and benefits of communication followed by the various examples of communication activities that you could try to enhance aspects of your personal, social and professional life.

Frequently asked questions

References:

 39 Communication Games and Activities for Kids, Teens, and Students. (2019, May 21). PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/communication-activities-adults-students/

8 Team-Building Activities for Improving Communication (With Tips). (n.d.). Indeed Career Guide. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/communication-team-building-activities

Communication skills training activity the name game. (n.d.). Www.trainingcoursematerial.com. Retrieved June 16, 2021, from https://www.trainingcoursematerial.com/free-games-activities/communication-skills-activities/the-name-game

Leah. (2019, March 13). 7 Fun Communication Games That Increase Understanding. Userlike Live Chat; Userlike. https://www.userlike.com/en/blog/communication-games

Team Building Exercises – Communication: Fun Ways to Build Communication Skills. (2009). Mindtools.com. https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/team-building-communication.htm

49 Communication Activities, Exercises, and Games. (2019, May 27). PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/communication-games-and-activities/

CFI. (2018). Communication – Importance of Good Communication Skills. Corporate Finance Institute. https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/careers/soft-skills/communication/

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