We all come across conflicts in our daily life and experience difficulties in dealing with them. Aimed at helping students handle conflicts in more smooth and effective ways, the ECAC hosted the workshop, “Empathetic and Powerful Phrases to Resolve Conflicts”, by Ms Joan Leong, ELC Senior Instructor, on 12 October 2022.

The workshop started with two warm-up activities.  First, students were asked to take a photo of the same object from different angles and compare their pictures.  This showed the students that people always have a different perspectives even though the object stays in one place.  Then, students were given an egg each and divided into two groups.  One group was asked to wrap the egg with a towel, and the other group’s egg remained unprotected.  Students from each group were asked to hit each other’s eggs to see what would happen to the eggs while protected by the towel.  The eggs remained intact.  Then, students were asked to remove the towel and hit the other unprotected egg.  This time, the eggs were broken. After this exercise, students reflected on the significance of the activity.  They expressed that the eggs represented people, and if hit hard, they would break down. Students then shared that we must be careful so we do not break others.

Ms Leong then showed some possible reasons for conflicts and how to understand and deal with them.  As experienced in the warm-up activities, conflicts would appear due to different perspectives and tough attitudes from both sides. Participants were shown the idea of empathetic listening and steps on how to deal with conflicts. Ms Leong also introduced some phrases that could be used while going through the steps and when talking with others. Six types of conflict-resolving phrases were demonstrated.  Students were then paired and given problematic situations where they could apply the steps of resolving conflicts and use the emphatic phrases they had just learned. It was remarkable to see students create vivid role plays based on their personal experiences and apply what they have learned from the workshop.

Practical and thought-provoking, this workshop offered participants a great opportunity to acquire knowledge about how to cope with conflicts more wisely and warmly.

Written by Alkaid Zhao Jinghan, ECAC Student Ambassador