Barriers to Communication Elementary School Objectives: The students will become aware of the barriers to communication. Materials: Boxes, markers Procedure: Explain to the students what a barrier is: a barrier is something that is hard to get over or around. Explains that today the class will be looking at ways people act that are barriers to their hearing one another. Ask for volunteers who will come up and tell you about their favorite pet. Warn the students that you might not be a very good listener. Demonstrate different barriers to listening with different students. Included might be Distraction, Interrupting, Impatience, Body Language, Telling the Person What to Do. After you demonstrate each, ask the students if you were a good listener. Have them name what you were doing that wasn't good listening. Write that barrier on a box and put it between you and the child who was talking to you. Say, "Interrupting is a barrier to communication." Ask the speaker if he found it hard to get you to hear him. Continue on, demonstrating different barriers as above. Ask the students if they can think of others and invite them to demonstrate them with you or another student as the speaker. Pile all the boxes on top of one another. Ask the students how it felt to try to get over or around the barriers. Ask what they can do instead of the poor listening. For example say, "How can we keep from putting up barriers? What can we do instead of being distracted, and looking around?" Write that word (pay attention) on the opposite side of the "distracted" box. Rearrange the boxes to form a chat corner in the front of the room with all the positive words facing inward. Tell the children that the corner will be used while they practice good listening skills. Reprinted with permission of Anita Whitely, OSU, Ursuline Academy of Cleveland, 1999 CURRICULUM INDEX
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