The tool or activity is appropriate for the beginning sessions of working with groups. It is useful in figuring out which languages people speak and understand and determining language buddies.
You will need:
- stickers (of different colours)
- pens (of different colours)
Time:
15 minutes
Group size:
Optimal group size is from 8 – 15 participants.
Step-by-step
1 – Ask participants to write their names on the stickers (of the same colour) or with pens (of the same colour) and paste it on the wall on a horizontal line.
2 – Ask participants to write their expert languages on stickers of another colour than before or with pens of different colour than before (each on one of them). Explain what expert languages are – languages they feel comfortable and confident to communicate in (not necessarily just their first language). When everyone is done, ask them to look at it and see with which people they share expert languages.
3 – Ask participants to write languages that they speak or understand a little bit on stickers (each on one of them) of the same colour but different colour then before. When everyone is done, ask them to look at it and see with which people they could communicate at least a little bit.
4 – Ask participants to write languages that they are learning at the moment or would like to learn on stickers (each on one of them) of the same colour but different colour then before. When everyone is done, ask them to look at it and comment on it.
5 – Read expert languages that are written more than once one by one and ask people who wrote it to raise their hands and notice each other. Explain and ask them to support each other in case they won’t understand the languages used in facilitation. Explain the language buddies concept and make sure everyone found their buddy/buddies.
6 – See if each participant understands at least a bit of the language/s of facilitation and make sure they get support (from other participants) if they don’t understand it much. Explain to them what to do, when they don’t understand something (raise hand and point it out or go to / ask language buddies or facilitators for extra explanation).
Tips:
Tell participants they don’t need to collaborate in any part of the activity they do not feel comfortable to or disclose any personal information they don’t feel comfortable to.
You don’t necessarily need to do the activity with stickers. You can use posters, whiteboard or projector and internet tools.
Do the facilitation in more than one language if necessary.
