If you know sign language, instead of interrupting the person you can quickly comment something they says (eg. I have a question OR I disagree OR I understand) without interrupting them. Then they can either let you talk, or finish saying what they are saying (if they judge it’s better to do so) but at least they’ll know what your reply will be about.
This is not an observation, but a proposition. I’m still not good at sign language.
Hand signs are also used a lot in school. How you put up yours hand indicates something about the urgency,
I guess that the conventions differ a lot between schools (and countries).
But from sitting in class of my sons I clearly notice patterns.
The ‘strength’ of the sign (how fiercely you put up your hand) clearly indicates subjective importance.
When answering open teacher questions there were two ways to put the hand up: Single handed to indicate a new answer or both hands (“Doppelmeldung”) to indicate elaboration in a previous answer.
Acoustic signals (e.g. clicking fingers) are obviously discouraged.
I have often seen that waving the hand indicates doubt about a previous answer or indication of an opposing answer.
These are simple and could be used in any group discussion.
I’m reminded of a tactic I implemented in a group context I had some control over once: discussion was mediated by each speaker getting to speak uninterrupted until they were done and then handing the floor explicitly to another member of the group, and everyone (~100 people) was issued four index cards (Red, Green, White, Blue) with instructions to raise them to indicate the following: Red = disagreement Green = agreement White = boredom/disinterest Blue = confusion/request for clarification.
It wasn’t a particularly good mechanism for mediating discussion, but I was intrigued by the ways people differed in terms of their response to various response patterns.
In fact, I’ve seen it done with the “wait gesture” (by people who don’t know a sign language per se), and it seemed to work well. So I hypothesise that it could work even better if someone knew more signs. But I have yet to put this to test.
If you know sign language, instead of interrupting the person you can quickly comment something they says (eg. I have a question OR I disagree OR I understand) without interrupting them. Then they can either let you talk, or finish saying what they are saying (if they judge it’s better to do so) but at least they’ll know what your reply will be about.
This is not an observation, but a proposition. I’m still not good at sign language.
Hand signs are also used a lot in school. How you put up yours hand indicates something about the urgency,
I guess that the conventions differ a lot between schools (and countries).
But from sitting in class of my sons I clearly notice patterns.
The ‘strength’ of the sign (how fiercely you put up your hand) clearly indicates subjective importance.
When answering open teacher questions there were two ways to put the hand up: Single handed to indicate a new answer or both hands (“Doppelmeldung”) to indicate elaboration in a previous answer.
Acoustic signals (e.g. clicking fingers) are obviously discouraged.
I have often seen that waving the hand indicates doubt about a previous answer or indication of an opposing answer.
These are simple and could be used in any group discussion.
I’m reminded of a tactic I implemented in a group context I had some control over once: discussion was mediated by each speaker getting to speak uninterrupted until they were done and then handing the floor explicitly to another member of the group, and everyone (~100 people) was issued four index cards (Red, Green, White, Blue) with instructions to raise them to indicate the following:
Red = disagreement
Green = agreement
White = boredom/disinterest
Blue = confusion/request for clarification.
It wasn’t a particularly good mechanism for mediating discussion, but I was intrigued by the ways people differed in terms of their response to various response patterns.
I’m not sure what this means. Do you mean that it seems to you like this should work, but you haven’t actually tried it or seen it done?
In fact, I’ve seen it done with the “wait gesture” (by people who don’t know a sign language per se), and it seemed to work well. So I hypothesise that it could work even better if someone knew more signs. But I have yet to put this to test.