Introduction

As educators, we strive to teach our students various social-emotional skills that will help them succeed in life. One such skill is learning how to act interested when someone is talking about something that may not be particularly engaging. It’s important to teach our students that it’s okay to think something is boring, but it’s not okay to show it. Acting bored can hurt people’s feelings, and we want our students to understand the importance of being considerate towards others. In this blog post, we will discuss an activity that requires no preparation, some discussion questions, and related skills to help students practice acting interested even when they’re not.

No-Prep Activity

One simple activity to help students practice acting interested is called “The Boring Topic Game.” Here’s how it works:

1. Divide students into pairs.
2. Ask one student in each pair to think of a topic they find boring.
3. Have the student with the boring topic talk about it for 1-2 minutes while the other student listens.
4. The listening student should practice acting interested by making eye contact, nodding, asking questions, and making comments or giving compliments.
5. After the time is up, have the students switch roles and repeat the process.

Once the activity is complete, discuss as a group how it felt to pretend to be interested and what strategies were used to make it more convincing. Encourage students to share their experiences and insights.

Discussion Questions

1. Why is it important to act interested when someone is talking, even if the topic is boring to you?
2. What are some strategies you can use to make your face and body language show interest?
3. How can asking questions, making comments, or giving compliments help you appear more engaged in a conversation?
4. What are some challenges you faced while trying to act interested during the activity? How can you overcome these challenges?
5. Can you think of a time when someone acted interested while you were talking, even if they might have been bored? How did it make you feel?

Related Skills

Teaching students to act interested when they’re not is just one aspect of developing their social-emotional skills. Here are some other related skills that can help students improve their social interactions:

• Active listening: Encourage students to practice listening attentively to others and provide feedback to show they understand.
• Empathy: Teach students to put themselves in the shoes of others and understand their feelings.
• Reading body language: Help students recognize and interpret non-verbal cues from others.
• Appropriate tone of voice: Guide students in using a tone of voice that matches the situation and their intended message.

Next Steps

If you found this blog post helpful and would like to explore more resources for teaching social-emotional skills to your students, we encourage you to sign up for free sample materials at Everyday Speech. You’ll find a variety of activities, videos, and materials designed to help students in special education develop essential social-emotional skills for success in everyday life.