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Tanenbaum Curriculum Transforming Conflict, page 132
Lesson Name Lowering Barriers to Communication
Grade Band

Middle School (6-8)

High School (9-12)
Required Material/s

Supplies:

  • Copies of Handout 1: Barriers to Effective Communication

  • Copies of Handout 2: Barriers to Effective Communication: Scenarios

  • Copies of Handout 3: Lowering Barriers to Effective Communication

  • Internet access

Preparation:

  • Make enough copies of Handouts 1, 2, and 3 for each student to have one.
Standards / Competencies

CASEL Core Competencies

  • Relationship skills

  • Responsible decision making

  • Self-awareness

Common Core ELA – Literacy Standards

  • Speaking and listening

  • Self-management

  • Social awareness

NCSS Social Studies Themes

  • Individuals, groups, and institutions
Recommended Time 40 minutes
Essential Question What can we do to give effective communication its best chance?
Learning Objectives

Students will:

  • Learn about six barriers to effective communication.

  • Recognize specific ways different barriers impede communication.

  • Identify ways to avoid communication barriers.
Activating Prior Knowledge Ask: Can anyone think of an example from a book, TV, or movie
where two people are talking past each other and can’t communicate?
Record responses.
Core Instruction

Ask: How many of us have been caught in a breakdown in
communication that we didn’t see was happening until we were in the
middle of it? Ask for volunteers to briefly describe situations where communication broke down.

Ask: What caused the communication breakdowns in the examples we
just shared?

Distribute Handout 1 and review the five listed types of barriers to communication. Ask students to work with a partner to add examples to each communication barrier and decide if there are other ones to add to the list.

Distribute Handouts 2 and 3. Ask members of each group to read either scenario one or scenario two. Then, ask group members to work together to identify barriers to communication in their scenario. Create a list of ways that the parties involved in each scenario could lower expressed barriers to communication.
Wrap-up Ask: Which of the barriers to communication seems most difficult
to lower? Why? Name a strategy for lowering barriers to communication
that you learned today and think you can use in your everyday
life?
Learning Beyond Classroom Walls Expressing behaviors of respect in our diverse world means
recognizing how effective communication, and barriers to communication,
shape interactions beyond situations of conflict or misunderstanding.
Read this story
from NPR’s My
Unsung Hero series. Brainstorm with a partner the
communication tools used throughout this story. Then, think of a time
that someone used tools for effective communication that made a
difficult, complicated, or stressful situation better for you.

Download this lesson to access handouts.