Talking Heads

Games for developing

Communication Skills
 Talking Heads
Aim: Talking Heads is a group activity presented as a board game or a pack of cards.
Designed to help young students talk more effectively about themselves, the game
has been adapted from the version originally featured in the CRAC Breakout Series
and has a career-awareness focus.

Contents
Introductory notes
The Talking Heads board (or poster) in 2 A4 sheets
4 A4 sheets of cards illustrated with faces
4 A4 sheets of cards with topics (for backing the above)

Board Game.

Materials: One Talking Heads poster or board per group of six to eight pupils. One
dice and one clock or stopwatch per group.

Procedure: The playing area lists 36 topics and players take turns to select and talk
on a topic for an agreed length of time. Selection is made by two throws of the dice.
The first throw identifies the row and the second throw identifies the column.

Rules: Depending on the age range and ability of the pupils, a brief answer is not
enough; the speaker must provide a reason for his or her response and must avoid
using certain phrases and expressions.

Scoring: ! Red squares: 5 points Blue squares: 4 points Green squares: 3 points

Penalties: ! Failure to speak on a topic or duplicating an earlier answer: no score

! ! Failure to provide an adequate explanation: lose one point
O
! K, boring, basically, actually, ummm, you know: lose one point.

Winner. The player with the highest score after an agreed number of turns. The
scoring procedure and rules may be simplified according to the age and ability of the
group. As an alternative, two or three pupils could work in teams rather than as
individuals.
Card Game

The card version consists of 36 cards with illustration of young people on one side
and the topics on the other. If desired, tutors can paste their own topics on the back
of the cards. With the side featuring the topics concealed from the group, the cards
are selected at random and the procedure can follow the one suggested for the board
game.

The words: What? Why? When? How? Where? Who? are found on the topic side of
the cards. These serve as memory joggers to help pupils extend their responses and
are taken from Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories

I kept six honest serving men,

(they taught me all I knew);
Their namers are What and Why and When.
and How and Where and Who.

Review: Discuss the topics that the pupils had most difficulty in talking about. Ask
them to identify the speech difficulties that occurred most frequently during the
course of the game and to consider ways in which these might be improved.

TC 6/09