SESSION 5: WORK

🎙️Welcome to this new Dub-in session!

In this session, we will focus on voice modulation and tone through the lens of job-related interactions.

Participants will explore complex positive emotions such as enthusiasm, reassurance, warmth, friendliness, and excitement and negative ones such as uncertainty, frustration, nervous, concern by immersing ourselves in various scenarios.

As participants step into the shoes of different characters and navigate challenging job situations, they will refine your dubbing abilities and master the art of delivering lines with the perfect tone, intonation, and emotional resonance.

Enjoy!

1. WARMING UP

This game serves as a fun and engaging warm-up activity.

RADIO EFFECTS (15 minutes)

Divide participants into pairs.
Instruct one person in each pair to be the storyteller and the other to be the sound effects artist.
The storyteller starts telling a short story and the sound effects artist uses their voice to create sound effects that match the story. For example, if the story involves a car chase, the sound effects artist could make engine revving sounds, screeching brakes, and honking horns.
This game not only warms up the participants’ voices but also promotes creativity, collaboration, and active listening skills.

2. GETTING FAMILIAR, PLAYING AND ROLEPLAYING THE PROPOSED SCRIPTS

In this section of our Dub-in workshop, we provide you with some activities aimed at exploring this session scripts about various facets of communication dynamics in work-related scenarios.

With this first activity you will introduce todays topic of work to students. The goal is to realize that we often have to talk to strangers on a regular basis due to transactional needs.

Knowing how to act and react and being able to have transactional interaction that empower us and make us feel competent and safe is therefore important.

THE LINE (20 minutes).

The trainer takes/finds a free space in the room draws an imaginary line on the floor: “This end of the line means “0/zero/not at all/never” and this end of the line means “daily, very often, all the time”. I ask you a couple of questions, please stand up and position yourself along the line depending on how you would answer the question.”
(The two ends of the line should be repeated with each question.)
All participants stand up and the trainer asks students the following three questions:
a. How often in a week do you talk to strangers?
b. How often in a month do you go to your workplace? (Maybe ask first “in a week”. Or adapt it)
c. How often in a week do you talk to your colleagues?
d. ….

This second activity serves as an interactive way to introduce the topic of work while exploring different job dialogues to be acted. It allows participants to engage in an activity while stimulating discussions about their interests.

MATCHING WORK CARDS (20 minutes)

Prepare a set of index cards or small pieces of paper. Write down different job titles or professions (e.g., doctor, teacher, chef, firefighter, engineer, etc.). with the corresponding job dialogue. You can use THESE TYPICAL JOB CONVERSATIONS.
Divide the group in couples and give one card to each couple.
Gather the participants and explain that they will be playing a matching game related to different jobs and their descriptions.
They just have to represent the scene by reading the dialogue, using just the voice to act as the person who talks.
The goal is that the whole group guess the profession to match the job dialogue. If a match is made, the participant/coupe who guess it, takes a turn and start with their own dialogue. If the group does not guess the job, the couple have to act it out again adding additional information.
Continue playing until all the job have been correctly guessed.
Once the game is complete, gather the participants for a discussion about work.
Use the following prompts to guide the conversation:
a. Do any of these jobs interest you? Why?
b. Have you ever had any personal experiences or encounters related to any of these jobs?
c. How often do you usually talk to a Teacher, Financial Analyst, Graphic Designer, Police Officer, Chef, Customer Service Representative, Engineer, Nurse…
d. What do you think are the important qualities or skills required for each job?
Encourage participants to share their thoughts and experiences, and facilitate a group discussion based on the questions and answers.

🗣️

During the discussion about what work is for the group, what function it fulfils, previous experiences, its benefits, etc. the trainer can comment that work is an area of great value and importance for people. Through work we enrich our identity and it makes us feel useful and valid. People can comment on situations, previous experiences and other ideas related to work, as the benefits for people:

It promotes personal growth.
It allows us to contribute something to the community. Increase our social worth.
It brings us challenges and promotes their resolution.
It increases personal satisfaction.
It allows us to be part of a group and develop new social networks.
It gives us independence and autonomy in our day to day (both economically, but also personally)

Third activity will allow participants to start exploring the three video-scenarios provided.

DUB IT RIGHT! (20 MIN)

Use these three VIDEO-SCENARIOS in the app. This activity involves improvisation and creativity where participants have to come up with the lines that match the scene and characters on the screen.
1. Divide participants into teams.
2. Play the video-scenario on a screen and mute the original audio.
3. Give each team few minutes to discuss and come up with their own dialogue for the scene. Consider adding a time limit to come up with their dialogue.
4. Once the players are ready, start the scene again, and each team takes turns dubbing over the dialogue.
5.Continue playing with the other two scenes, and rotate participants to ensure everyone gets a chance to participate.
6. It may be useful to provide a template where to write the lines, and which provides the dialogue structure of the scene. See DUB IT RIGHT doc.
SCRIPT 1 – USE THE APP
SCRIPT 2 – USE THE APP
SCRIPT 3 – USE THE APP

Fourth activity will give participants the opportunity to reflect upon difficult situations related to the scenarios provided.

ROLEPLAY (30 MIN)

The participants go into three groups and each group gets one of the three scenarios provided. Unmute the VIDEO-SCENARIOS.
The participants go into three groups and each group gets one script.
Each group has the task to think about how the dialogue could go that would definitely lead to a misunderstanding, failure. They first think about how to fail in the situation and not reach one’s goal. What would you have to say to get to an uncomfortable situation? (10 minutes’ group work)
They should then present (just verbally) in the plenum (10 minutes, for all three groups together)
They go back in the small groups and work on a successful script: What should or could you say to have a good feeling in the situation, on both sides? What do you need to say to get what you need? What would be useful phrase? (10 minutes)

Finish this section with a short discussion about the three scenarios.

DISCUSSION (10 MIN)

Discuss what are the scenarios they find them often in, and what can be or is stressful about them. Introduce the three scenarios by showing the video with the audio and talking about the situation and the goal and how that can be difficult or illicit unease:

SCENARIO 1 “First day on the job. You introduce yourself to your colleagues”.
SCENARIO 2 «Ask a co-worker for help».
SCENARIO 3 «Talk to your boss about another employee who has insulted you and inform him that you do not feel comfortable in this work environment».

A brief discussion will be generated. Some questions can be used:

a. What themes emerged in the conversation?

b. Did any specific lines or moments stand out to you? Why?

c. What insights or observations can be drawn from the dubbing performances?

BREAK

3. DUBBING THE SCRIPTS

🗣️

Explain to the participants the importance of the VOICE:

How high or low is the pitch of the voice in each line? This can be detected without the use of language by using beats, gibberish or plain sounds. This also defines the speed of each line which is linked to the inherent aim of each sentence.
The importance of the pauses in relation to the tone of the voice within each line, namely, where do the actors stop speaking, where do they make short pauses. The breath. This is also linked to the aim of each sentence, but it also defines the mood and sentiment behind each line.
The intonation and the general mood in each line.

One effective exercise to show how important is the voice, is EMOTION DUBBING.

EMOTION DUBBING (15 MIN)

Use the VIDEO-SCENARIOS provided with no sound, to pay attention to the following expression of emotions:

Video 1: Positive emotions such as enthusiasm, warmth, friendliness, and excitement as the characters interact on the first day of work.
Video 2: Uncertainty and frustration are met with reassurance and assistance from the co-worker.
Video 3: Nervous and concern of the principal character as she brings up a serious issue at work, are met with openness, concern, and a commitment to resolving the problem from the supervisor.

Divide participants into pairs.

Let participants practice dubbing the character’s lines (ORIGINAL DIALOGUES) using their voice with a focus on the emotions showed. The main goal is to match the emotions shown in the video, or even exaggerate them.

Tell the participants that the goal is to convey the character’s emotions solely through their voice.

Record, using the DUB-IN APP, participants’ performance.

Ask the other participants to observe the dubbed version and see if they can accurately identify the emotion being conveyed through the voice.

After each performance, discuss with the participants whether the emotion was effectively conveyed through the dubbing.

Ask questions like:

What specific vocal elements (pitch, tone, pace, volume, etc.) contributed to conveying the emotion?
Did the dubbing accurately match the emotion shown in the video? Why or why not?
How challenging was it to convey the emotion through voice alone?

SCRIPT 1 – USE THE APP

SCRIPT 2 – USE THE APP

SCRIPT 3 – USE THE APP

🗣️

This exercise helps participants understand how voice modulation, tone, and intonation play a crucial role in conveying emotions in dubbing. It also highlights the importance of voice acting skills in accurately conveying the character’s feelings.

Now participants should be ready to start recording the scripts provided.

RECORD THE SCRIPT (45 MIN)

All participants must have previously given their consent for the sound recording. SEE CONSENT FORM

Starting with the first script, show the video and read the ORIGINAL DIALOGUE.
Dub and record one video scenario.
Depending on the progress of the group the second person in the video (cashier, store employee, doctor’s secretary) is dubbed by the trainer or by another participant.
The dubbed scene will be watched, and any improvement/adaptation they feel can be made will be discussed.
The scene will be dubbed again, with the agreed improvements.
Each person should have dubbed at least once scene.
Depending on the progress of the group there might be time for some to do/try a second scene.
It is important, in order to establish the fun part of dubbing, to provide an alternate sound recording in gibberish.

The scheme will be:

Dubbing the scene
Watching the dubbed scene
Discussing improvements
Recording again

SCRIPT 1 – USE THE APP

SCRIPT 2 – USE THE APP

SCRIPT 3 – USE THE APP

See ORIGINAL DIALOGUES.

🗣️

Talk about the volume, the tone, the different nuances that the voice can take. Use gibberish and explore how the voice differentiates and expresses the feelings. Talk about what you want to achieve in each dialogue and propose tones of voice in relation to what you want to achieve.

4. FEEDBACK

Start by summarizing important aspects of the session. You can use this points:

1. RADIO EFFECTS
Pairs create sound effects for a short story, promoting creative collaboration and active listening.

2.1. THE LINE
Participants stand along an imaginary line based on their frequency of actions, highlighting the importance of transactional interactions.

2.2. MATCHING WORK CARDS
Participants dub job dialogues while guessing corresponding professions, encouraging engagement and dialogue discussion.

2.3. DUB IT RIGHT!
Teams dub videos with improvised dialogue, enhancing creativity and collaboration.

2.4. DISCUSSION
After dubbing scenarios, participants discuss common stress-inducing situations and communication strategies.

2.5. ROLEPLAY
Roleplaying scripted situations, participants explore successful and unsuccessful dialogue approaches.

3.1. THE VOICE
Participants learn to convey emotions through voice elements like pitch and tone.

3.2. RECORD THE SCRIPT
Participants dub scenes, focusing on voice dynamics and improving their dubbing skills.

Then finish the session with an assessment activity.

ASSESSMENT (15 MIN)

All participants stand up and the trainer asks the participants the following questions (difference line-up as previously):

On a scale from 1 (totally boring) to 10 (extreme fun): How much did you enjoy today’s session?
Go one by one asking for the different activities organized.
On a scale from 1 (very difficult) to 10 (easy as pay): What do you think about today’s session?
On a scale from 1 (totally agree) to 10 (extreme disagree): how do you rate the following sentences?

I will not change anything from the session

I am happy to have participated on it

…

Ask the participants individually for some feedback of why they stand were they stand to find out what was enjoyable and what was strenuous/difficult.

Be sure that you allow group discussion and space for participants to share their thoughts, perspectives, and suggestions. Encourage open and respectful communication.

Take notes of common topics, areas of improvement, and positive feedback raised during the discussion. Use the ASSESSMENT SHEET.

Summarize the key points from the discussion and thank participants for their valuable input.

To finish, resolve any misunderstanding or difficulty, relieve stress, if it has arisen, thanks everyone for his/her effort.

Encourage participants to continue practicing their newly acquired skills using the additional exercises available on our DUB-IN APP.

ADDITIONAL EXERCISES SESSION 5. DUB-IN APP.

Close the session.