Science

Saying the hard thing, in English

This track is called psychodidactics. Feelings, needs and conflict are English too — and a child can rehearse them in a game before life asks for the sentence.

Two ideas

A child who does not feel safe will not risk speaking. Foreign-language anxiety is real and can be measured (Horwitz, Horwitz & Cope, 1986); the way it blocks learning is known as the affective filter (Krashen, 1982). A game played privately, where a wrong answer costs nothing in front of others, lowers that risk. Available Now

Second: talking about hard things can be learned. Thomas Gordon’s I-messages and active listening, and Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communication, give a short form for saying something hard without blame. Putting a feeling into words is itself calming (Lieberman et al., 2007); in a second language it is practice twice over.

These are language games, not therapy.

I-messages

“You never listen to me!” blames the other person. An I-message speaks for the speaker: “I feel frustrated when I am interrupted, because I lose my thought.” The formula — I feel … when … because … — is short enough for a child to use in English. Gordon also named the replies that shut a conversation down: ordering, warning, lecturing, and “don’t worry, it’ll be fine”.

Nonviolent Communication

Four steps: what I observe, what I feel, what I need, what I request. A real feeling — sad, worried, relieved — is different from a word that hides a judgement of someone else: “betrayed”, “ignored”, “used”. Those are called pseudo-feelings.

What children practise

Children need these words with friends, at home and online, yet course books rarely have them. In the game the child gets the words and the skill together:

Saying what happened and how it felt — with an I-message, without blame.
Asking, not demanding — naming what is needed, and telling a request from pressure.
Listening first — answering the other person’s feeling instead of jumping to advice.
Choosing a tone — the same words can sound caring, neutral or aggressive.

Twelve games Available Now

All twelve are in the games catalogue; we recommend them from level B1. Each trains one skill.

I-Message Cloze — fill in the feeling, the behaviour and the reason.
Conflict Reframe — turn a blaming you-message into an I-message.
Emotion Labeling — read a situation and choose the precise word for the feeling.
Intonation Choice — listen and decide whether a sentence sounds caring, neutral or aggressive.
Assertive Response — choose the assertive reply over the passive and the aggressive one.
Emotion Ladder — put feeling words in order, from mild to strong.
Need Detective — find the need behind a feeling.
Escalation Meter — find the moment a dialogue went wrong, and the phrase that did it.
Active Listening — choose the reply that reflects the feeling instead of giving advice.
Cultural Bridge — handle a difference in directness and politeness between cultures.
Pseudo-Feeling Filter — sort real feelings from pseudo-feelings.
Request vs Demand — tell a real request from a demand disguised as one.

Open the emotions games

References

Gordon, T. (1970). Parent effectiveness training. Wyden.
Gordon, T. (1974). T.E.T.: Teacher effectiveness training. Wyden.
Horwitz, E. K., Horwitz, M. B., & Cope, J. (1986). Foreign language classroom anxiety. The Modern Language Journal, 70(2), 125–132.
Krashen, S. (1982). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. Pergamon.
Lieberman, M. D., Eisenberger, N. I., Crockett, M. J., Tom, S. M., Pfeifer, J. H., & Way, B. M. (2007). Putting feelings into words: Affect labeling disrupts amygdala activity. Psychological Science, 18(5), 421–428.
Rosenberg, M. B. (2003). Nonviolent communication: A language of life (2nd ed.). PuddleDancer Press.