Instead of having assembly every morning, starting 2011, our school has launched a new program which is the morning activities. For Monday, it will be Bahasa Melayu, English Language for Tuesday and Mathematics for Wednesday. Assembly and Bacaan Yassin will be scheduled on every Thursday and for Saturday, we will be having the usual assembly and aerobics.
Every week, teachers will come up with ideas on what to do for the activities which suits the subject.
For example, we have “Chinese Whispers” activity (in Bahasa Melayu since it’s Monday today).
In the school hall, after dividing students into groups and sat them in circles.
Cikgu Arina explained how the activity is played.
As many players as possible line up such that they can whisper to their immediate neighbours but not hear any players farther away. The player at the beginning of the line thinks of a phrase, and whispers it as quietly as possible to his or her neighbor. The neighbor then passes on the message to the next player to the best of his or her ability. The passing continues in this fashion until it reaches the player at the end of the line, who calls out the message he or she received.
If the game has been 'successful', the final message will bear little or no resemblance to the original, because of the cumulative effect of mistakes along the line. Deliberately changing the phrase is often considered cheating, but if the starting phrase is poorly chosen, there may be disappointingly little natural change.
Ismat (Year 3 Intan) the starting person trying to remember the message.
“Uh ohhh… I forgot what the next word is! HELP!!!”
The last person telling teacher the message.
The above stripe is the correct answer, but after relaying, the 7-words message had been shortened to
“Kita mesti sekolah”
The game has no winner: the entertainment comes from comparing the original and final messages. Intermediate messages may also be compared; some messages will be unrecognizable after only a few steps.
As well as providing amusement, the game can have educational value. It shows how easily information can become corrupted by indirect communication. The game has been used in schools to simulate the spread of gossip and supposed harmful effects. It can also be used to teach young children to moderate the volume of their voice, and how to listen attentively; in this case, a game is a success if the message is transmitted accurately with each child "whispering" rather than "shouting".