How to Play the Gibberish Game

If you teach a dramatic acting class to small children or are a budding young film star, you may want to learn a few acting games. For children especially, the use of acting games adds a level of fun to learning—kids have such a good time while doing the activities they may actually forget that there is an educational standard to achieve. The Gibberish Game is one such acting game suitable for students aged six to 12.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Play the Gibberish Game. One or more people stand in a room. Another acting student suddenly runs into the room, babbling completely unintelligible gibberish while making exaggerated use of hand motions, facial expressions and vocal tone. The gibberish-speaker must attempt to describe to the people in the room what just happened outside the room. The challenge is for the players to discern the meaning of the actor's body language, gestures and overall tone.

2. Adhere to the rules of the Gibberish Game. The Gibberish Game is a very loosely construed activity with few concrete rules, but there are a few guidelines. Decide in advance if students can shout out guesses or if they must take turns guessing. There is no limit to the number of attempts at guessing; however, if the students fail to grasp the actor's meaning after a few minutes, the drama coach should intervene to help the actor better express himself. There is no "winner" of the Gibberish Game—it is simply an outlet for students to express themselves in a different manner than normal and to have fun. Ideally, each person in the room should have a chance to be the actor.

3. Know the benefits of acting games. Drama games help children develop more creativity, overcome stage fright, take chances and express themselves. Games develop improvisational skills, or the ability to think quickly on one's feet. Acting classes in general help develop self-esteem, communication skills, empathy for others, cooperation and a better understanding of the group dynamic.

4. Practice some other common theatre acting games. These include mirror exercises, in which one person mimics what the other is doing; facial expression exercises; one-sided conversation exercises; one-word story games (the teacher says one word and the child has to act out an entire story based on that word); prop games and emotion-simulating games.