We started our day off with our meditations and were deep in our thoughts.
The question put to us was… What is "Communication"?
In brief all our thoughts put together….Communication is used to convey what we would like to convey or express our thoughts to others.
Then, the question arose…What is "Expression"? Is "Expression" different from "Communication"? What is important Is "Expression" or "Communication"?
After a great deal of "How" type questions we came to understand that:
"Communication" is the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another. Effective communication occurs only if the receiver understands the exact information or idea that I intend to transmit.
1) In an airport, the announcer gets the passenger to go through Security Check by announcing. All passengers get his attention and do the needful. This is effective communication.
2) Following a set of instructions to stitch a dress form a pattern book is also a type of communication.
"Expression" is all about ME, what I am thinking and what is my state of mind?
1) A 3 month old baby wails when he is hungry or in any kind of pain and gets immediate attention. His expression was very effective.
2) An old/tribal woman trying to cross the road expresses her fear on her face. The traffic stops, this is an expression.
What is "Language"?
Language is the spoken and written words combined into phrases that make sense. It is the means or mode for "Communication" or "Expression".
Thought: My ability to think or making my thoughts richer helps me in communicating and expressing myself better. A rich language is directly proportionate to rich thinking.
Activity 1:
Write in one line as to what is a mop?
Few of us wrote:
1) We use it to clean the floor or mop the floor
2) It saves time
3) It is a wet cloth; a stick with a rag; it costs Rs.175
4) Like a broom
Categorizing it in four quadrants: 1St & 2nd points are the Uses & Benefits (OUTCOME);
3rd point is its Description (INFORMATION);
4th point is an Example (UNDERSTANDING).
While trying to learn, make points more towards UNDERSTANDING. This gives us an insight to deeper concept.
Activity 2:
The activity was on writing about the class room. Most of us started to write. However, we were paused and asked to explore the room in every aspect and by using all our senses such as touch, feel, hear, see/ view and of possible even taste. Then, we went back to writing about the room.
What did I experience?
Of course, the paragraph written was about the room however, the main essence was all about "ME" in it. What I saw, how I felt, what I heard, what I viewed and lastly, what I experienced. Isn't that wonderful and amazing when it is all about "ME".
Activity 3:
In a circle make 4 quadrants, centering the circle with "ME".
While the top two quadrants are Listening & Reading the bottom two quadrants are Speaking & Writing.
Map Listening to "Me" and design an activity that involves "Me" for the topic: Listening.
We were grouped in three's and each of them had some interesting activities. Jotting a few below:
· Reading a book with colors associated to objects. The child will have to carefully listen to the story and draw the objects that he/she likes the best with their own colors and creativity.
· Gargle up a word, sentence or phrase and let the children guess. To make it even more interesting, make teams and let them come up with their own phrases, sentences or words which they gargle it up and other teams will need to guess.
· As the children are walking into the class, the music is played with sounds of animals, gushing winds, rain & thunder and many more others related to a forest. The children are to guess the different sounds and can choose to enact, color or paint.
LANGUAGE: Making it more visual gives the child a descriptive thought with deeper concepts. Using metaphors helps.
What are Metaphors? Metaphors: the term metaphor meant in Greek "carry something across" or "transfer".
· A comparison between two things, based on resemblance or similarity, without using "like" or "as"
· Understanding and experiencing one thing in terms of another
Why use Metaphors:
· enlivens ordinary language
· generous to readers and listeners; they encourage interpretation
· gives maximum meaning with a minimum of words
· allows us to write about our feelings, thoughts, things, experiences, etc.
Using metaphors for creative writing makes it more interesting and entertaining. It is also a visual analogy.
Examples: Visual metaphor for 'Infinite': 1) Arrows 2) Numbers 1,2,3,…. 4) Mirrors placed facing each other 5) Space
Activity 4:
With closed eyes imagine yourself on a hill station and make a movie of it. Open your eyes……
What did we do? We VISUALIZED.
Change the format from VISUALIZATION TO CRAZYLIZATION.
Now, close eyes and make the movie using crazy shapes, colors and anything that we visualize around us. How does that feel?
Interesting activity was on memory. A set out of nouns were thrown out from the class. Ratnesh made a story using these nouns very creatively but a crazy twist. Like BIIIIGGGG Fan, tiny- the most tiny rose, huge tree in the middle of MG Road.
Surprisingly, all of us were able to remember the words in the reverse order perfectly. From here, we derived and got aware of the LINKING method and the PEG method used to memorize.
LINKING Method: It is a 1,1,1,1 basis.
Visiting the information in 1 hour, revisiting it again after a 1 day, after 1week and after 1 month will get the noggin to store the information. It will help you never to forget. This way the "LAZY SLAVE" is kept active and on his toes.
PEG Method: This is method when you hook it to familiar words or objects.
Example: sun, shoe, knee, door related to the nursery rhyme "This old man". Pegging the numbers to these rhyming words helps us to remember phone numbers etc… Similarly, associating names with familiar people or incidents is called peg method.
