Conflict resolution skills should be a fundamental part of school curriculum, discipline approach and management style.Using conflict resolution techniques in school decrease violence, behavioral disorders, bullism, and also increase classroom management and students’ emotional development.
It is important however to prevent conflicts as much as you can in school in order not to get to conflicts. And how how can you do it? Through different activities that teach them to communicate and to solve their conflicts with calm.
The objectives of the next three examples of activities in order to prevent conflicts, and using as a base mediation are:
– To facilitate the group collaboration to get a final result;
– To set up a positive communication attitude;
– To adapt word vocabulary to a new situations;
– To reflect on the message from creative, non-literary or literary texts.
I would like to present you three practical examples that I’ve used in my English class (7th graders):
I. Communication skills
Situation for student: you receive a visit from an English-speaking student from another country at your home. To help him adjust, you will need to mediate communication with your non-English speaking parents.
Student A will be the host;
Student B the guest;
Students C and D will be parents.
Students in a class will be divided into groups of 4. Each member of a group will be character and will start to perform a conversation.
Time: 10 minutes
Feedback: Teacher creates a live poll on a mentimeter software and students have to vote.
What sources of information do you use most often in this dialogue?
Give number 4 to the most used one and 1 the least.
– own knowledge of English
– google translate
– visual support (objects, images you have at hand)
– the dictionary
Resources: paper, mentimeter software, internet, laptop, phones.
II. Dance and English lyrics
The dance and song – The Sid Shuffle – Ice Age: Continental Drift
Situation for students: Students group themselves in 5. Teacher plays the original video on a big screen in the classroom. The desks need to be moved because you need space.
Then teacher plays the video with the explanation of dance and lyrics step by step https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSIJRHFpuQw
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05v8euuCh6w
Students watch the explanations step by step and one student from each group writes down the steps in English. Students in each group discuss the steps and try to do the dance. Each group will perform in front of the class.
Time: 35 minutes
Feedback: all the class do the dance and song together
Resources: internet, laptop, videoprojector
III. Watch&debate
Piper Disney Pixar Short Movie
Partly Cloudy Pixar Short Film
Boundin Pixar HD Short Film
Situation for students: Students watch all these 3 short movies by Pixar.
Students have to decide which one they liked best and why (refer to: the topic, the designer’s imagination, setting, characters, theme, the moral of the story)
Feedback: Students choose number 1, 2 or 3 by voting online.Teacher uses mentimeter software to create a live poll.
Remember that there are four ways to better reflect how communication occurs in real life:
• Reception: comprehension in listening and reading
• Production: formulating something new to say or write
• Interaction: engaging in conversation or written exchanges
• Mediation: adjusting the message for the recipient.