This exercise is an adaptation of “Emotional Intelligence Exercise: Making Eye Contact” that is available on this website: https://www.skillsconverged.com/blogs/free-training-materials/emotional-intelligence-exercise-making-eye-contact

Learning Objectives

This exercise helps participants to understand and appreciate the power of eye contact and how it can affect emotional connection and emotional states. It is ideal in teaching emotional intelligence, body language and communication skills.  

Context

Since this exercise can be used to teach emotional intelligence, body language, and communication skills, it is best placed in any educational setting and can be tailored to appeal to both a younger and older audience. Emotional intelligence is an important life skill, and everyone, regardless of age, education, and background, can benefit from this activity.

Implementation

This resource can be incorporated in many ways, but it is best used as an icebreaker and/or at the start of the class, workshop, meeting, etc… This resource is also good to incorporate in the middle of said class, workshop, meeting, etc… because it requires participants to get up and move around which increases engagement and active listening. It also provides a good opportunity for participants to get up and stretch, especially if they have been sitting for too long.

A good amount of space is required for participants to be able to freely walk around, therefore it is important to consider the number of participants that will be doing this exercise in addition to the space that you will be utilizing. It is recommended that participants are either given or use their own piece of paper and a writing utensil, for it will be helpful to give them the opportunity to take down notes during appropriate times throughout the activity in order to remember details for the debrief afterwards. The debrief is not necessary, but it would help participants get more from the exercise and is highly recommended.

This exercise can take anywhere between 10-30 minutes depending on how much time you allocate to your participants for note-taking after each round as well as how much time you spend on the debrief afterwards. The actual exercise itself could take 10-15 minutes.

Exercise Instructions for Facilitator(s)

This activity will have 3 rounds. Make sure to provide participants with a notecard/piece of paper and a writing utensil.

Round 1

1. Once we say so, everyone will start walking around the room as if you all are in a public space while NOT making eye contact with anyone else. 
2. We will be setting a timer and doing this for 1 minute, once the minute is over, we will tell you all to stop and give you further instructions.
3. *Do the activity for 1 minute* 
4. STOP 
5. Using the card we handed you, please write down how this round made you feel and/or what you are feeling now; you can write whatever you want, just make sure to put a *1* next to what you wrote to indicate that it’s for the first round.
6. We will be doing this 2 more times. 

Round 2

1. Once we say so, everyone will start walking around the room again, and this time we ask that you seek out eye contact. However, as soon as you and someone else make eye contact, you both should break it and look away.
2. We will be setting a timer and doing this for 1 minute. Once the minute is over, we will tell you all to stop and give you further instructions.
3. *Do the activity for 1 minute*
4. STOP
5. Using the card we handed you, please write down how this round made you feel and/or what you are feeling now; you can write whatever you want, just make sure to put a *2* next to what you wrote to indicate that it’s for the second round.
6. We will be doing this one last time.

Round 3

1. Once we say so, everyone will start walking around the room again. Just like Round 2, we ask that you seek out eye contact. This time, however, you will pair up with the first person you make eye contact with. Once you pair up, you and your partner should stand side by side and make sure that you do not establish eye contact with anyone else.
2. We will be setting a timer and doing this for 1 minute. Once the minute is over, we will tell you all to stop and give you further instructions.
3. *Do the activity for 1 minute* 
4. STOP 
5. Using the card we handed you, please write down how this round made you feel and/or what you are feeling now; you can write whatever you want, just make sure to put a *3* next to what you wrote to indicate that it’s for the third round.
6. Once you have written on your card, go back to your seat with your card, and we will follow up with a discussion. 

Debrief

• Before we get started with our discussion, please note that you are not required to share if you do not want to. You are allowed to share as much as you would like, and we hope that we have enough people willing to share for us to be able to have this discussion.
• While you were going through the different rounds of exercise, how did you feel?  
  • How did it feel when you were making eye contact and you had to break it straight away? 
  • How did it feel when you made eye contact and you could approach the person to pair up with
• If you had a difficult time pairing up with someone, how did it feel to go about finding someone you could make eye contact with?
• How easy was it to make eye contact with someone?
• How close do you feel with people that you maintained eye contact with?
• What pre-conditioning dictates our behavior in making eye contact or maintaining eye contact, and how does this compare between different societies?