For Field Personnel

Team Building activites

My Side of the Line

Objective: to identify Americans' tendency towards competition as part of their worldview. Competition is viewed by Americans as positive, but other countries view cooperation as holding a higher value than competition. This issue can create problems for Americans in working with nationals and in trying to adapt to the host culture.

Instructions:

1. Divide the room in half with a straight line using tape or string.
2. Ask the volunteers to pair up with someone they do not know well.
3. Have them introduce themselves and tell something about themselves to their partner that their partner would not already know about them.
4. Tell the team that the instructions for the game are as follows: When you say "go," each person's objective is to get the other person on their side of the line before time is called.
   a. The team may ask all kinds of questions, but the only instructions you are to give them is that their objective is for each person to get the other person over to his or her side of the line before time is called.
5. Once you call time, everyone who did not successfully achieve the objective must sit to the side and watch those who achieved the goal play again with new partners. Play the game until only two players are left.
6. If the two players left are "fighting" to get the each other to the other side of the line, let them play until one person wins. Then follow instruction number 8 below.
7. If the two players left cooperate and one player crosses willingly to the other side of the line, use the pair as the object lesson when you are debriefing.
8. When only one player is left of the last competitive pair, you tell the team that you will play the game with the last person and you know that you will win. Use a lot of bravado when saying this - no one has ever dragged you to the other side of the line and you're not about to let the other person be the first to do so, etc.
9. Have someone else say "go." When that signal is given, simply walk to the other side of the line and stand next to your "opposition." Game over.

Debriefing:

1. Ask the volunteers what they experienced when they played the game.
2. Ask them how they felt about their experience.
3. Using either the non-competitive pair, or yourself and the last person in the game, ask the group what they observed when that pair (or you) played the game. How did they play the game? Was the objective successfully reached? Was that the right way or the wrong way to play the game?
4. NOTE: According to the instructions, there was no right way or wrong way to play, but there was an easier or a more difficult way to play. Fighting against one's opponent is the difficult way to accomplish the objective. Cooperating with your opponent is the easier was to accomplish the objective, especially when we do not view the need for an winner and a loser to be established. The natural tendency of Americans (especially young people) is to face challenges with competition. Point out that valuing competition as healthy and even necessary in many cases is ingrained in their worldview because of how and where they grew up. However, not all cultures view competition as healthy or desirable. Challenge the volunteers that while they are on this volunteer project they can identify other elements of their worldview by which they live that do not fit in their new cultural surroundings.

Language Learning

Objective: To help the volunteers overcome their fear of communicating (or fear of not being able to communicate) by giving them a taste of the language.

Instructions:

1. Speak to the volunteers in the local language for a few minutes. You might end the short monologue saying (in the local language) "Let us pray" and then pray in the language.
2. After the prayer, begin speaking to the group in English again. Ask them the debriefing questions listed below.
3. Explain a simple greeting in the local language, including the accompanying mannerisms such as a type of handshake, a bow, or a kiss. Give a hand out with the words on it or write the greeting on a poster or chalkboard so the volunteers will learn the greeting more quickly. Have the volunteers repeat the words of the greeting after you until they sound relatively comfortable with it.
4. Ask the volunteers to form two lines facing each other.
5. Ask them to greet each other using the local greeting, including mannerisms.
6. Have one line shift one person to the left. The person on the end will go down to the other end of the line to greet that person. Continue the activity until all volunteers have greeted everyone in line. If other missionaries or MKs want to participate, too, that is fine. The more times the volunteers practice the greeting (and see it done correctly), the more comfortable they will be in using it with the local people.

Debriefing: Ask the volunteers the following questions:

1. Did you understand what was said?
2. How did you feel about your inability to understand? Expressing feelings is not always easy, so wait for them to answer before going to the next question.
3. Did you know when to pray, or did the prayer catch you off-guard?
4. How did you know when the prayer was over?

   Review the Seven Tips of Language Learning with the volunteers:

   Show your willingness to learn. You are vulnerable, but make such a positive statement when you are a learner. Listen a lot! Listening and observing will help you avoid cultural faux pas and teach you body language. Memorize basic phrases and mimic them. Do not seek a word for word meaning, but grasp the idea of the phrase (ex.” Hello” in English is a greeting. It is not really definable) Have fun as you learn; play games with counting, naming etc. Be ready to laugh at yourself. Learn power tools that will aid language learning. Memorize the equivalents of “Thank you” Basic greeting” “What is this called”, “I don’t understand”, “speak more slowly,” “repeat that, please,” “ etc. Keep your learning to the most commonly used words and phrases that cover a broad concept (ex. “tool” instead of “micro-electronic balanced adjuster”). Show appreciation for the new language even when you are confused.

Space Activity:

Objective: To help volunteers recognize their assumption that personal space is necessary and a global cultural issue.

Instructions:

1. Ask the participants to pair off with another participant whom they do not know well of the same gender.
2. Introduce themselves and begin to get to know each other.
3. Move a step closer to one another.
4. Move closer and closer until they are in physical contact.
5. Call for attention. The participants will probably step back to their comfort zone.
6. Instruct the women to sit down.
7. Ask the men to hold hands, fingers interlaced, and walk around the room.
8. Applaud the men for being good sports after they have circled the room.
9. If time permits, ask the women to divide into approximately two equal groups.
10. Tell them to pretend they are greeting of old friends.

Debrief:

Ask:
a) Were you comfortable?
b) What in our worldview causes discomfort during this exercise?
c) What happened to noise level when you became uncomfortable?
Summarize:
What did you learn?
Possible answers:

• Space and touch are personal behaviors.
• In our culture there are different behavior norms for men and women, friends and strangers
• In new situations we seek our comfort zone.

My Time, Your Time

Objective: To help the volunteers recognize that time is valued differently in different parts of the world. This exercise can help the volunteers identify the value that they place on time and begin to make adjustments for adaptation to the host culture.

Instructions:

1. Make copies of the information box below so each volunteers has a copy.
2. Ask the volunteers to complete the questionnaire.
3. Go through the questions and ask the volunteers how they answered each one
4. Discuss those questions about which there is a discrepancy.

Answers to the My Time, Your Time questionnaire:

Debrief:

Make these points:

• Unlike most other cultures Americans are time conscious.
• The successful cross-cultural worker leaves the daytimer at home.
• Do not be annoyed when events do not start on time.
• Relax and enjoy the situation.
• On-time-but-flexible should be the standard for the volunteer.

Exotic Food Tasting

Objective: To help volunteers become accustomed to encountering new and different foods and smells while being a gracious guest, willing to try new things.

Instructions:

1. Distribute pre-prepared bags of assorted snacks from your country
2. Ask the participants first to look at each bag.
3. Ask them to smell the contents.
4. Lead, by example, the group to taste each snack.
5. Describe the snack as you eat. This will alert participants who might be have a food allergy to certain ingredients to refrain from that particular item.
6. Encourage all participants to taste; do not demand.

Debrief by asking the volunteers the following questions:

1. What did you first think of the food when you saw it? When you smelled it?
2. How did you know if others in the group liked or disliked the food?
3. How do you feel, in general, about trying new and different foods?

   Summarize:

• We need to know how to refuse gracefully.
• We need to be willing to try new things
• We need to guard facial expressions.