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Description

How accurate is your communication? Draw clearly, then pass it on and hope your message doesn’t get lost in translation.

Courtesy of the Scout Association: https://www.scouts.org.uk/activities/lost-in-translation/

Resources

Coloured pens or pencils
Scrap paper
Bowls

Instructions

Before you begin
-This activity is perfect for a rainy day. It doesn’t need much equipment, so you could do it anywhere, as part of a regular meeting or on a trip or camp.
-Write some common sayings on different scraps of paper. Fold each saying in half, and put them all in a bowl.
-Decide whether you’ll play the ‘traditional’ version with pen and paper, or whether you’ll use tech. If you want a digital challenge, you’ll need enough devices that can take and share pictures.

Get lost in translation
-Everyone should get into groups of four. Each group should sit in a small circle, and each player should get a piece of paper and a pen. If there aren’t an even number of players, some could go twice, or they could pass their paper or picture to someone in another team.
-Each player should take a saying from the bowl. The person leading the game should time five seconds, then everyone should stop looking at the saying.
-Everyone should quickly draw the saying at the top of the paper. It doesn’t matter if people don’t know or understand the saying – the drawings can be quite literal. For example, for ‘the apple of my eye’, someone could draw a person with apple trees in their eyes.
-The person leading the game should give a signal, and everyone should pass the paper to the player on their right.
-The person leading the game should time five seconds, then everyone should write a sentence about what they see and fold the drawing back, so they can’t see it anymore. For example, the second player could write ‘a person with big, staring eyes and leaves growing out of their head’.
-The person leading the game should give a signal, and everyone should pass the paper to the player on their right.
-The person leading the game should time five seconds, then everyone should draw a picture to show the sentence they read. They should fold the sentence back, so they can’t see it anymore For example, the third player could draw a creature with huge eyes and massive, leafy branches coming out of their head.
-The person leading the game should give a signal, and everyone should pass the paper to the player on their right.
-The person leading the game should time five seconds, then everyone should write a sentence about what they see and fold the drawing back, so they can’t see it anymore For example, the final player could write ‘beware of the big-eyed tree monster!’.
-Everyone should open out the piece of paper and look at how the saying changed over the course of the game. Did anyone’s stay the same? Which changed the most?
-Everyone should keep playing until they run out of sayings, paper, or time.

Common sayings:
The apple of my eye
Too many cooks spoil the broth
A piece of cake
To spill the beans
Money doesn’t grow on trees
As old as the hills
A penny for your thoughts
The early bird catches the worm
A scaredy cat
To kill two birds with one stone
A fish out of water
A bed of roses
To put your money where your mouth is
To bark up the wrong tree
To be away with the fairies
A little bird told me
A stiff upper lip
The bee’s knees
Through thick and thin
To be up in arms
A stone’s throw
The wrong end of the stick
Busy as a bee
Two peas in a pod

Reflection
-This activity put everyone’s communication to the test. Miscommunications happen all the time. Digital tools have introduced more ways for people to share ideas, experiences, thoughts, and feelings – but they can make it even more challenging for people to work out exactly what someone means. Everyone should think about a time they misunderstood something. Anyone who feels comfortable sharing should tell everyone about it. People may think about quick messages, or messages filled with emojis, which they thought meant one thing, but which the sender thought meant something else. What can people do to communicate more clearly? What should people do if they’re not sure what a message means?
-This activity also needed everyone to care about others and think about the impact of their actions. Misinterpreted messages are sometimes called ‘mondegreens’, which comes from a line of a poem that people misheard – they thought ‘and laid him on the green’ was ‘Lady Mondegreen’. Sometimes people’s brains just register what they hear as a different set of words, but sometimes the values and beliefs people already hold shape the way they interpret what they hear. Can anyone think of any examples of when or why this may happen? People could hear something in a language they don’t understand and break the sounds down into different words. Some symbols also have different meanings for different people, for example, different people may interpret the yin yang symbol as meaning balance, light versus dark, or good health. Why is it important to be careful and clear when making interpretations?

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