Activity

USING CHAIRS

Number of participants

Up to 20 participants

Objectives

● To raise awareness on the meanings conveyed by body language.
● To stimulate the body and non-verbal expression.

Where does the activity take place within the process

Middle

Duration

10 minutes

Material needed

As many chairs as participants

Preparation

Place chairs randomly around the room so that there is plenty of space between them and chairs are not directly facing each other.

Step by step description

1. Invite participants to sit down.

2. Tell participants that you will be asking them to imagine that they are sitting in a number of different places and contexts and you would like them to adjust their position to demonstrate how they would sit in that situation.

3. Ask participants to ignore others in the room and imagine sitting (you can add as many situations as you want):
-in your favourite place
-on public transport
-at an interview where you really want the job
-at an interview where you’re the interviewer.

4. Move back and forth randomly from one scenario to the other, so participants get to adjust their positions a few times.

5. Repeat exercise, this time inviting participants to continue doing the exercise but also use their peripheral vision to observe how others change their position in response to the instructions.

Closing up

Bring all the participants together and guide the debriefing by asking the following questions:

● What did you notice about how you sat in each of the contexts?
● Did you notice if others had similar responses?
● What does that tell us?

Resources

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Comments / hints for facilitators