Middle School (6-8)

High School (9-12)

Supplies:

• Chart paper

• Markers

• Tape

• Copies of Handout 1: Paraverbal Communication and Handout 2: The Sender’s Role

• Internet access

Preparation:

• Display the following under the title “How Our Feelings and Attitudes are Communicated:”

  • 55% comes from body language (especially facial expression).

  • 38% comes from paraverbal communication (pitch, tone, volume, pace).

  • 7% of any message about our feelings and attitude comes from the words we use.

• Make enough copies of Handout 1 for each student to have one.

• Make two copies of Handout 2, one for the teacher and one for the student who will be the sender in the exercise.

CASEL Core Competencies:

• Relationship skills

• Responsible decision-making

• Self-awareness

Common Core ELA-Literacy Standards:

• Speaking and listening

NCSS Social Studies Themes:

• Individual development and identity

• Individuals, groups, and institutions

• Self-management

• Social awareness

• Global connections

Students will:

• Learn the components of paraverbal communication.

• Recognize how different components of paraverbal communication send us unspoken messages.

• Identify the impact paraverbal communication can have on communication between two people who disagree.

• Connect between paraverbal communication, body language, and space.

Share these Audio
Exercises for Expressing Emotion from the Social Communication resources of Truman State University.

Ask: What are you taking away from this exercise?

Post the chart titled, “How our Feelings and Attitude are Communicated.” Tell students that these figures come from studies conducted by the communications expert Albert
Mehrabia. They help us understand what people react to when we communicate with them. Ask students if they are surprised by these figures. Ask students if they think these figures seem correct, or if they should be revised.

Share that today the class will be looking at paraverbal communication.

State the definition of paraverbal communication: “Paraverbal communication is the information listeners get from how a person delivers their message. Types of paraverbal communication include the pitch of someone’s voice, their tone of voice, and their speaking pace.”

Distribute Handout 1 and review the content. Ask if anyone has any questions about volume, tone of voice, or pace/rate of speed. Respond as needed.

Ask two students to volunteer for a mini role-play and assign them roles of sender and receiver. Give the sender a copy of Handout 2. Tell the sender to carefully read each description of how they will send their message. Neither the receiver nor the class should know what the sender’s directions are.

Ask the receiver and sender to stand facing one another at a comfortable distance.

Tell the class that the exercise will be repeated three times. Ask students to write down the differences they perceive in each of the three repetitions.

Say: These two students are friends who have agreed to meet for
lunch. The receiver did not show up as agreed. The sender will now tell
their friend how they feel.

Tell the sender to give message A. Give the class time to record observations about the emotions they experience when speakers communicate their messages at different levels of volume, tone, pitch. Repeat with messages B and C.

After the sender has repeated the message three times, ask: What
body language and paraverbal communication did you see and hear in
message A? Chart responses on the board or on chart paper.

Ask the class: What body language and paraverbal communication
did you see and hear in message B? Ask the receiver: How did
message B make you feel? Why? Repeat these two questions for message C.

Point out that the sender’s behavior in message C was all paraverbal communication.

Ask the sender and receiver to resume their position facing one another. Ask the sender to move closer to the receiver. Ask the sender to repeat message B at this closer distance.

Ask: What do you think would happen if this is how the sender
tells the receiver they are angry with them? Why?

Closing:

Ask: What have you learned about paraverbal communication that
you think will make the most difference in how you talk during a
conflict? Why?

Taking Informed Action:

Share with students a literary passage or historical speech where pitch, tone, or volume of a character’s voice is clearly used to convey an emotion or opinion, or to capture a scene’s mood. Ask students to explain and analyze what attributes of paraverbal communication they see or hear. Students can use the scene as an inspiration to write their own narrative or dialogue using attributes of paraverbal communication to express emotion. Encourage students to experiment with the same text expressed with different elements of paraverbal communication.