Icebreaker

"Telephone" activity

Objective: to understand how difficult it is to make communication accessible and to pass it on reliably. Participants: Group size is not fixed. In small groups with only 3-4 participants, the "aha" effect will not be quite so visible.

Instructions:

1. Participants sit or stand in a circle. They all should wait in silence.
2. One participant thinks up a term or short sentence and whispers the term or phrase into the ear of the person to his or her left or right. It is not allowed to repeat what was said if the next person doesn’t understand the word or sentence.
3. This person then whispers the heard term or sentence into the ear of his or her neighbour.
4. The series continues until all participants have heard the term or phrase, and have passed it whispering to their neigbours.
5. The last person speaks the heard term or sentence aloud to the group.
6. Then the first person says the original term or sentence out loud.
7. The terms or sentences are compared. Most of the time there is a difference.
8. Then, discuss what caused that misunderstanding: were there background noises, was it because it was not allowed to ask, what happened when the word or sentence wasn’t understood properly?

This exercise helps to make others understand how difficult it is to make communication accessible and to pass it on reliably. Every time the message is passed from person to person, there can be a loss of information, a misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of what is heard. Participants become aware of how easy it can be to start rumours or misunderstand and pass on information incorrectly.