LESSON 5:
Leading Large Groups
This lesson supports Peer Mentors by equipping them with the understanding and skills required to lead large groups of students. This lesson looks at how we communicate with others, using both verbal and non-verbal skills, and three key elements of behaviour leading: Expectation, Acknowledgment and Correction. Students will have the opportunity to learn how and why we use these skills before applying them to an activity they will learn and run for students at their school.
Equipment:
UPP Workbook and Pen
Notebook
Coloured Pencils
Lesson Objectives:
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Use pitch perfect skills, including verbal and non-verbal techniques, to improve their public speaking.
Learn how to effectively manage the behaviour of groups of students.
Learn and then deliver an activity which could be run at school with younger students.
ACTIVITY 1 - Pitch Perfect Video and Discussion
Watch the following video before moving onto the next activity. After the video, ask students to summarise how they can use both verbal and non-verbal skills to communicate effectively with others.
Activity Reflection:
This activity demonstrates to students that to successfully untie the knot, every member has to be involved. Since everyone is involved, it is the responsibility of everyone to be an upstander. If the group is unsuccessful during the activity because people standby when poor behaviour is presented, that's the responsibility of everyone, not just the person behaving poorly. It is the same here at your school, in the playground or classroom, or even away from school. If you are present and observe a situation where poor behaviour occurs, then it is your responsibility to be an upstander, even if there are other people around.
ACTIVITY 2 - 60 second speech
Instructions:
Ask students to find a partner and decide who is person A and who is person B. Student A chooses an image from the screen and then gives a speech about it for 60 seconds to their partner. The focus is less about what the students say and more on practicing verbal (volume, pitch, pace) and nonverbal (posture, body gestures, stage presence) elements of communication.
Encourage student A to stand and face their partner, while student B sits down. Remind students to take a step back from each other, to make it less like a conversation.
Once the 60 seconds is over, the partner gives feedback, one thing that worked well and one thing you could work on. Remind students not to take this personally, and instead take it on board to help them be the best speakers they can be. After this, swap over so the other person can practice, following the same process.
activity 3 - EAC Behaviour Leading Video and discussion
After watching the video, discuss what problems may arise if a group of peer mentors ran an activity and led students by using only expectations, acknowledgement and correction. Discuss as a group why it is important to have a balance of expectations, acknowledgement and correction, when leading groups of students. How might the success of the activity be different?
activity 4 - MUTE LINE UP
Split the students into equal sized groups. The teams must arrange themselves in order according to the category. Teams must remain silent throughout this process and cannot write anything down to help communicate with their team. They must only use their body language and actions.
Possible Categories:
Shoe size
DOB
Street number
Last two digits of their phone number
Activity Debrief:
Our actions and body language is powerful and is another way we communicate with others. We can use our body language to support our expectations and affirm others when they follow our expectations and instructions. We also use body language to correct the behaviour of others by redirecting their focus.
ACTIVITY 5 - LEAdING ICE-BREaker activities
Discuss with the students what a well-run activity may look, sound and feel like, to both younger students and peer mentors. Refer back to EAC behaviour leading if needed.
Students are to be divided into small groups. Each group will learn a different ice-breaker activity. Remind students they must work together and all have an active role in learning the activity. Every student in each of the groups should feel confident running the activity they are given.
Ice-Breaker Activity 1: Five Things in Common
Instructions:
Ask students to get into groups of five.
Tell the students that their task will be to work in their groups and find five things that everyone in their group has in common, that are not to do with school. Make the rule that obvious statements, such as “I go to x school, I am in grade x, I have shoes on” etc. do not count.
Ask students to nominate one person in their group to write down things everyone had in common.
When all groups have finished writing their list of five things, ask a volunteer from each group to read out their list. see if anything overlaps across all group lists. There might be one thing all students have in common!
Ice-Breaker Activity 2: Fruit Basket
Instructions:
All students but one sitting a circle, on chairs, with one person (standing) in the middle.
The person in the middle calls out a category or description that might apply to some of, or all of, the other students. (e.g. all boys, all blondes, those who have a pet, play a particular sport, learn an instrument, have more than one sibling, etc.)
When called, if a student matches the description, they must leave their chair and find another chair.
The person that doesn’t find a chair becomes the next in the middle.
When ’fruit basket’ is called, everyone changes chairs.
Ice-Breaker Activity 3: Human Alphabet
Instructions:
Put some music on and ask students to walk around the room.
Explain to students that you are going to randomly stop the music and call out a number and when you do they need to get themselves into the groups of the number you have called out and sit down.
When everyone is sitting in groups, call out a letter of the alphabet (it doesn’t matter if not all students fit into the exact number you called out, some groups can have one more or one less student in them).
Explain to students that they will need to use their imagination and their bodies to make the letter of the alphabet that you call out using their bodies (all students must be part of the letter and the letter can be an upper or lower case letter).
Once all groups have made their letter, acknowledge any groups who made the letter in a particularly imaginative way.
Begin the process again starting with students walking the area to music.
Ice-Breaker Activity 4: Cross Circle
Instructions:
Everyone starts in a circle.
One person (A) starts by calling another person’s name (B). At that point, A starts walking towards B.
Before person A gets to person B, person B needs to call another name (person C). Person B leaves their spot in the circle, which person A then takes.
Person C then needs to call yet another name and start walking, so Person B can take person C’s spot.
This is then repeated from person C and continues to be repeated until everyone has had their name called.
Give the students time to learn their activity and then ask each group to practice delivering the activity to the rest of the group. The group can then give one “What went well” and one “Even better if”, to support the future facilitation of the activity.
Conclusion
Ask the students to consider:
What is your biggest learning from this lesson? How will putting this learning into practice support you as a peer mentor?
Which element of non-verbal communication are you going to practice and why?
Which element of verbal communication are you going to practice and why?
Some activities have been adapted by Unleashing Personal Potential from www.improvencyclopedia.org, www.reachout.com, www.playmeo.com, www.tom.edu.au, and through years of practice in education. Thanks to the many educators who have contributed to developing these now tried and tested activities.
These resources have been curated and built for you by Unleashing Personal Potential.