speech_projects

Exercise: What’s your position?

by Barbara Bosch

Goal

Administer an exercise that activates participants, promotes group discussions and makes people aware of cultural diversity and differences in personalities.

Description

The exercise has 4 parts

1. Explaining the exercise
2. Reading the statements out loud and positioning of participants on an imaginary line on the ground
3. Group discussion
4. Final remarks

Explaining the exercise

The moderator explains that s/he will read out loud several statements. The participants position themselves on an imaginary line on the ground. Where they position themselves depends on the degree to which they agree with the statement. Positioning themselves to the very right of the line means fully agreeing, positioning themselves to the very left means not agreeing at all. Those who agree somewhat position themselves on the line accordingly.

You will need some space for this exercise.

Statements

• “Hierarchies are necessary. Without them, there would be chaos.”
• “Small-talk at the beginning of a meeting is unnecessary. It steals valuable time.”
• “Blowing your nose at a dinner table in public is impolite.”
• “You show respect for a person by looking them straight in the eye.”
• “Religion and politics are taboo topics you should not discuss with strangers.”
• “It’s polite to respond „maybe“ to an invitation even if you know that you won’t go.”
• “If you schedule a meeting for 3 p.m. and the other person shows up at 3:10 without having informed you about the delay beforehand, you consider the behavior rude.”

Group Discussion

After the participants positioned themselves on the imagined line, the moderator asks them to get together in groups of 2-4 people and discuss where they positioned themselves with respect to each statement and which assumptions and values their positions are based on. As a reminder, the moderator repeats the highlighted words/parts of the statements. Variation: The moderator reads only one statement out loud and initiates group discussions right away (this saves time). It’s also possible to choose several of the statements but to initiate group discussions after each one.

Final Remarks

As a final remark, the moderator points out that there is no right or wrong way of responding to the statements and that the variety in responses stems from cultural and personal differences.

Time Frame

10-25 minutes

Questions for Evaluators

• What did the moderator do well (please give specific examples)?
• Did s/he give clear instructions? How so?
• Did the moderator stay within the time frame?
• Did the moderator foster a friendly atmosphere? How so?
• To which degree did the moderator consider cultural differences himself/herself (please give specific examples)?
• How could the moderator have administered the exercise even more effectively?