Personalities – roles in dialogue
A role-play shedding light on the different personality roles in a dialogue.
A. The exercise can be used as a method to emphasise teaching and developments methods.
B. Make sure to choose a theme the participants know about.
C. You can also choose to give a particular role to the participants if you know them well.
D. Do not let them have their nametags on, they should keep it a secret. This way they are forced to create more awareness of who they are by playing their roles.
Required Material: a room with a chair for each person. If possible, a blackboard and six nametags.
Write the nametags before starting the exercise.
Divide the participants into groups of 6.
Each nametag should have a role written on it. The facilitator explains each role. If you want to, you can write each role on the blackboard, this way it is easier to remember.
Roles:
The leader: the one who controls the process
The scientist: sticks to facts
The pessimist: always sees limitations
The optimist: always sees possibilities
The artist: the creative and innovative
The hippie: the one who sees with emotions and senses
Explain to the group that they have to debate a subject e.g. dialogue, the headscarf, spirituality or similar subjects. It could be what they think about the subject? Whether religion plays a positive or negative role in society. As a facilitator, you can form questions depending on the subject or theme you want them to debate/discuss.
Each member of the group takes a nametag (they should turn it upside down so the others don’t know which role they will be playing) They should play the role written on the nametag.
The debate can last between 10-30 minutes. The facilitator can decide whether they should change roles after 10 minutes.
After 1-4 rounds of the role-play, they should engage in a dialogue together and talk about their experiences in the different roles.
How did the roles affect you?
Did the atmosphere change?
Which role was easiest?
If there is more than one group, you can reflect together in plenary session.
Thank everyone for their participation, and summarize what was learned.
