Expressing yourself assertively is a core skill that everyone needs to learn. Being assertive can help you express yourself effectively, taking actions using nonverbal skills and standing up for your point of view. These 20 assertive communication exercises and activities can help your students improve their assertive communication skills and be heard without being aggressive or dismissive.
1. Practice Active Listening
By teaching a student to listen actively, you are teaching them to show mutual respect to the speaker and foster other social skills that they need in order to give an assertive response. Your students can practice these skills with a friend. Give each person a standpoint and remind them to maintain eye contact and remain calm throughout.
Learn More: Psych Central
2. Model Behavior
One of the first things to teach when teaching students assertive communication is teaching them appropriate assertive behaviors like saying no, standing their ground, and talking about their feelings. A great way to teach these behaviors is by modeling.
Learn More: Psych Central
3. Play ‘Mystery Bag’
This fun game is a simple way to teach students to have confidence in themselves and their guesses. Place a few mystery items in a bag and let students guess what’s in it. They need to share what they think and then explain why they think it’s a certain item.
Learn More: Moments A Day
4. Role Play
Role Play is one of the best ways to teach assertive communication. You can assign roles to different students and talk them through how to best assert themselves when communicating with the other person.
Learn More: Moments A Day
5. Assertive vs. Aggressive
When learning about assertiveness, knowing the difference between assertiveness and aggressive behavior is important. The aim of being assertive is to get your point across effectively without being aggressive. For this exercise, plan to have someone barge into the room unexpectedly- displaying anger instead of assertiveness. Take time to discuss with the class what the person should have done instead.
Learn More: Thrive Works
6. Assertive Communication Worksheets
These psychoeducation worksheets provide practical examples and practice exercises for students to practice eye contact, body language, and effective communication; all of which are important aspects of assertive communication.
Learn More: Therapist Aid
7. Passive, Assertive, or Aggressive?
Write down a couple of scenarios where someone is either acting passive, assertive, or aggressive. Give each student three colored pieces of paper; blue to represent passive, green to represent assertive, and red to represent aggressively. As you read each scenario, the students need to distinguish between the communication style and hold up the correct color.
Learn More: Heart.org
8. How To Say No
Saying no in a nice but assertive way is one of the greatest conversation skills a child can learn. Ask the students a few questions that they have to say no to, but help them come up with ways to say no assertively.
Learn More: AMA Net
9. How To Be More Assertive Worksheet
This wonderful worksheet will help your students be more assertive by establishing their reasoning, developing a script, practicing assertive body language, and listing situations where they want to display better assertive skills.
Learn More: The Wellness Society
10. Understanding Different Communication Styles
There are four main communication techniques and styles: passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and assertive. This description of communication styles can help your students determine which style they rely on most upon; helping them change their bad communication styles to positive, assertive styles.
Learn More: Princeton University
11. Emotion Awareness
Knowing your own emotions and understanding the difference between negative and positive emotions can help your learners be more assertive. This easy activity prompts them to identify various emojis and group them according to certain emotion-evoking scenarios.
Learn More: Futurum Careers
12. I-Statement Worksheets
At times it’s hard to express yourself when faced with a host of overwhelming emotions. These I-statement worksheets aim to help your students use the right language to express themselves effectively.
Learn More: Very Special Tales
13. Fists
Divide students into two groups and give them their instructions separately. Tell the first group that they must make a fist and not open it unless someone asks nicely and assertively. Tell the second group they just have to get the first group’s fist open.
Learn More: Futurum Careers
14. Assertive Communication Handbook
This downloadable handbook provides great activities, worksheets, and games to help you effectively teach your students how to be assertive in stressful situations.
Learn More: Very Special Tales
15. Situation Samples
Create a list of scenarios where a person should be assertive. Let the students practice responding in different ways by being passive, aggressive, assertive, or passive-aggressive. Run through the different responses afterward.
Learn More: Futurum Careers
16. Keeping Cool
A big part of building assertiveness is to keep your cool in difficult conversations. These simple exercises can help you keep your cool and respond calmly and assertively.
Learn More: Preventing Bullying
17. Eye Contact Circle
One of the most important elements of effective and assertive conversations is eye contact. This simple exercise requires participants to form a circle. Each participant will have to answer a simple question that the person across from them asks. Then, they need to trade places without breaking direct eye contact.
Learn More: Futurum Careers
18. Chair Hopping
Create a circle with chairs and place one extra chair in between each person. The people sitting down on the chairs have to convince a person who is standing up to sit next to them. This activity can help students recognize the difference between aggression and assertiveness when extending invites and giving instructions.
Learn More: Skills Converged
19. Listen And Draw
This fun exercise will help your students practice their listening skills. Two students must sit back-to-back. One of the students will talk about something, describing it in detail. The other person has to listen carefully and draw what is being described. When assertive communication is employed, drawings are more accurate.
Learn More: ESL Speaking
20. Square Talk
Blindfold a group of students and give them a piece of rope. Tell them that they have to create a square with that piece of rope, but no one is allowed to let go of it. This exercise will distinguish between effective and non-effective communication skills and teach students how to react when faced with a communication crisis.
Learn More: Venture Team Building
27 Awesome Auditory Activities