Talking Heads

Talking Heads is an excellent activity to use at the start or end of a lesson. This activity promotes discussion and is great with an opinion based topic. It is played by the teacher placing images on the board of people’s heads and these heads have a statement coming out of them in the form of a speech bubble.

The statements could be opinions or common misconceptions. The learners need to think about each statement and comment on whether they agree or disagree and explain their decision.

This is a great activity to engage learners because it encourages them to have the courage of their convictions. This builds confidence and allows the learner to feel comfortable to challenge the status quo.

Advantages	Disadvantages
Independent thinking	Time required to plan well
Decision making	Knowledge of common misconceptions required
Problem solving
Collaborative working
Can be used as a starter or plenary
Cross curricular

Although it takes time to foresee any potential pitfalls, this activity generally has a lot of positives so should definitely be considered as a lesson starter. It also gives a really useful insight into how much initial knowledge of the new subject that the learners are bringing with them.

Here is an example of Talking Heads: