Game category
Psychodidactic games built on Nonviolent Communication: name feelings, defuse conflicts, listen actively — in English.
If you can name it, you can tame it. Learners build a rich English vocabulary for feelings — beyond happy and sad to frustrated, relieved, overwhelmed. Scenarios ask them to label what a person feels and why.
Research basis: Based on emotional-literacy research and name-to-feeling linkage (affect labeling, Lieberman).
From annoyed to furious: order the intensity. Learners arrange feeling-words by intensity — annoyed, irritated, angry, furious — and pick the exact rung for a described situation. Precision in feeling-words is precision in thought.
Research basis: Fine discrimination of emotional intensity marks emotional and linguistic literacy.
Watch a conflict heat up — then cool it down. Learners track a dialogue as it escalates, flag the moments where the temperature rises, and choose lines that would have lowered it. Conflict dynamics become visible and manageable.
Research basis: Based on de-escalation and nonviolent-communication research.
Turn "you always…" into "I feel…". Learners complete and build I-messages: "I feel X when Y, because I need Z." The nonviolent-communication formula is practised in English in a low-pressure game environment.
Research basis: Based on the Nonviolent Communication model (Rosenberg).
A request accepts "no." A demand punishes it. Learners classify and reframe statements: which are genuine requests and which are demands in disguise? Then they phrase requests that are specific, doable and open to refusal.
Research basis: Based on the request-versus-demand distinction in Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg).
Behind every feeling hides a need. Find it. Learners read emotional statements and infer the unmet need behind them: safety, respect, autonomy, connection. Looking for the need behind the words is a core move of nonviolent communication.
Research basis: Identifying the need behind the feeling is the heart of Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg).
Show them you really heard. Learners practise active-listening moves in English: reflecting, clarifying, summarising what the speaker said. The listener's side of a conversation finally gets its own training.
Research basis: Based on active-listening and interpersonal-communication research (Rogers).
Not a doormat, not a bulldozer — assertive. Given a tricky situation, learners choose or build the assertive English response between the passive and aggressive extremes. Politely standing your ground is a language skill.
Research basis: Assertiveness is a learnable communicative skill between passive and aggressive.
Decode the moment where cultures clash. Learners analyse short cross-cultural misunderstandings — a joke that fell flat, an offer refused "the wrong way" — and identify what each side assumed. Cultural empathy becomes a skill.
Research basis: Based on intercultural-competence research (Byram).
Same situation, calmer words. Learners take heated conflict lines and reframe them into constructive English: from blame to observation, from attack to request. The cool-the-conversation skill gets concrete practice.
Research basis: Reframing is a core tool of conflict resolution and nonviolent communication.
"I feel ignored" isn't a feeling — it's an accusation. Learners learn to distinguish real feelings (sad, scared, hurt) from pseudo-feelings that hide blame (betrayed, ignored, used) — and to translate the latter into a real feeling and a need.
Research basis: Distinguishing feeling from disguised interpretation is the core of Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg).
It's not what you said — it's how you said it. Learners hear the same sentence delivered with different intonations and decide which fits the communicative goal: support, sarcasm, a sincere question. Tone becomes a conscious choice.
Research basis: Intonation carries attitudinal meaning and distinguishes communicative intentions.
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