Home Staging TNT

Lesson Planning from the Heart: Right brain strategies for preparing and teaching effective lessons.

Author: Duncan Foord

Bio data: The author is Director of Teacher Training at OxfordTEFL, Barcelona Spain. He has been training teachers on Trinity Certificate and Diploma courses for the past 10 years.

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Introduction
An approach to planning with comments on a sample lesson plan
Reasons why this approach can be effective
Frequently asked questions
Bibliography

Introduction
The article suggests that a global rather than linear approach to conceiving lessons and lesson plans can be helpful to trainee teachers, by allowing more flexibility in staging and more focus on our communicative aims. The ideas are based on the writers experience observing lessons taught by experienced teachers on Trinity Diploma courses and beginner teachers on Certificate courses.

As teachers and teacher trainers we are familiar with teaching and observing lessons which dont reach their end, in other words we or the teacher we are observing run out of time before reaching the last one or two stages. Not doing everything youve planned is not necessarily a bad thing, but in my experience the bits planned for the end are nearly always the most crucial bits of the lesson, the pay off, the raison detre, the heart of the lesson. Rather than work towards our aims, it might be more helpful to work around them.

An approach to planning with comments on a sample lesson plan
I have produced two procedure plans for the same lesson. One is in traditional linear format, the other as a spider graph or mind map, centring round a heart. The communicative aim of the lesson is at the heart and the various activities which might support learners in achieving this aim are shown as satellites and arteries which feed and pump life into the heart. Forgive the mixed metaphors, but you get the idea.

The mind map is numbered, but it is fairly clear which bits can be left out and which bits depend on other bits and are therefore more distant from the heart. For example the drill activity (2) is dependent on examples to drill (1). Of course both can be left out altogether. We could start the lesson at 3 or 5 or even 7. I think this kind of flexibility is more difficult to envisage with the linear format.

Conceiving the lesson in terms of a kind of mind map, rather than a series of numbered and sequenced events can be helpful for several reasons:

Reasons why this approach can be effective:

1.Right brain dominant and visual teachers will immediately identify with information presented in this form more easily (for more on this, see Fletcher, 2000). In my experience about half of the teachers I put the idea to are immediately enthusiastic and the other half are sceptical. Below are some reasons to persuade the other half to give it a go.

2.The importance of the communication activity is emphasized. It is the heart of the lesson, it must be there or the lesson dies. This should be reflected in the plan. In linear sequences it appears as one among a series of activities which seem to be of equal importance. Looking at the example plan included here, it is clear that students can give each other advice about problems without having worked on formulae for giving advice or reading a text from a problem page. In other words, the satellites are peripheral and can be easily left out of the lesson. I think it is possible to have a heart which isnt a communicative activity (see FAQ 1 below), but most lessons seem to work best when it is. Of course the heart could be a receptive activity such as understanding an extract from a film or a newspaper article.

3.If we believe that students learn better through a communicative approach then its probably a good idea to be conceiving communicative lesson plans; in other words plans which not only foreground communication activities, but also, in their very form, embody and reflect the task-feedback-task cycle which is inherent to the communicative approach. The linear formatted plan invites a dogged adherence to the sequence planned, as if leaving something out would somehow break a chain and wed have to start again. This type of thinking, derived I believe from behaviourist models of language learning, is not always helpful and doesnt really reflect the full picture of the way we learn.

4.Flexibility. The mind map lesson plan/mindset allows the teacher more freedom to add and discard activities more easily in response to time constraints, learner needs or whatever. The satellites can be numbered to suggest a sequence.

5.Learner involvement. If the lesson plan is presented to learners in this format on OHP or whiteboard at the start of the lesson, they have an opportunity to add bits, take bits way, even change the heart and start again, if they want. Alternatively the teacher can start with a heart and let the learners suggest the satellites. This can be taken a stage further so that learners decide the hearts and the satellites, a kind of course planning from the heart.

Frequently asked questions

1.Does this model only work for lessons based around communication activities? No. I can imagine a lesson, say, with a class preparing for a First Certificate exam, where the teacher wants the learners to work on their accurate use of prepositions. The heart in this case could be students fill in a gapped text with prepositions removed and the satellites could include work on typical uses of certain prepositions with reference to a grammar book or teacher chalk and talk or learners researching and peer teaching, sentence gap fills, reading and noticing, a game of preposition dominoes etc.

2.This model seems to be relevant for task based learning, but what if you dont subscribe to that? Before task based learning, communicative teaching was frequently expressed through the PPP type lesson. This type of lesson usually contains a task, the third P, Production or Free Practice. The difference was that it always came at the end as if it was only possible once the students had earned it by jumping the first two hoops Presentation and Practice. PPP is like a half way house to communicative teaching, embracing the idea of a communication activity as a vehicle for learning but retaining much of the audio-lingual insistence on sequencing and getting it right before moving on.

3.What about beginner learners? Surely they need some carefully sequenced input before they can attempt even basic communication tasks? Yes, I agree. How can students play bingo for example if they dont have a grasp of numbers in English? You could have two hearts! Or better still combine them in one Learn the numbers 1-50 well enough to play bingo. If you set out with this in mind you will be less likely to be overly diverted by satellites like practice word stress thirteen vs thirty,

4.What about staging? Isnt it important to create lessons for learners which are carefully sequenced to support learning? I think some sequences make more sense than others, but theres probably too much fuss made about staging, by which I understand activities following on from each other logically. I suspect learners brains and learning are often a bit more messy and more robust than that, so we need plans that can go with the flow without abandoning core objectives. This lesson could start with stages 5 and 6, for example, or even 7

With a population of over 23 million, Texas is the second largest state in the nation. The housing market in Texas has remained strong in most cities and counties, with Houston (population 2,144,000) being the largest and most active in the real estate and housing market, followed by San Antonio and Dallas.

Texas homes for sale are remaining at their fair market value, with little or no loss in sales compared to some areas of the country. This can be attributed the diverse economic make up of the state and the lower than average unemployment rate.

Land sale in Texas are at an all time high with no significant reduction foreseen in the near future. Commercial retail property rentals have remained steady in spite of the overall national economic downturn.

East and Southeast Texas, (which includes Houston) having the larger portion of population density, is by far the most active in the housing market. New home sales were at an all-time high in the beginning of 2007, however it has since experienced a downturn with a high inventory of new unsold homes.

The existing home market has remained strong with more of a buyers market driving sales and is expected to remain steady throughout 2008.

For example, the Beaumont and Port Arthur Texas area (southeast Texas) will be creating 12,000 plus new construction jobs in the petro-chemical industry over the next 3 years. This will create a severe housing and apartment shortage in this area. Housing is at a premium at this writing.

In conclusion: The overall outlook for Texas Real Estate is good compared to other areas of the nation. With the diverse make up of various industries, Texas can maintain its steady housing market sales in the foreseeable future.

Bringing out the positive and downplaying the negative is essential in presenting your home in its most positive light. Here are 11 tips for home staging success to help get a faster and more profitable real estate sale.

1. Alter the layout of books on a bookshelf with some stacked vertically which can become a pedestal to show off a piece of pottery, collectible, heirloom or other art item. Go throughout the books and prune your collection to create a less cluttered look.

2. Make sure all of the furniture in a space is functional and remove items of furniture that contribute to overcrowding rooms.

3. Get the furniture off of the walls. Many people are tempted to push all of the furniture along the edges of a room in the mistaken belief that it makes the room look bigger, when in fact it creates a more train-station type of look with seating around the edges. Granted in very small rooms, there are not many options, but try moving the furniture off of the wall and incorporating an area rug, maybe even off-angle in the room layout.

4. Smaller furnishings also work wonders in small rooms to give the room a sense of proportion and space. For this, even rental furniture may be called for to bring in pieces sized more appropriately for small rooms, and just having less furniture will help.

5. Remove heavy curtains and replace them with lighter window treatments with a slightly transparent or sheer quality to improve natural light in the room. Bright rooms tend to look bigger.

6. Lighting makes a big difference not only for movie sets, but also for a well-staged home. Increasing the types of light available for each room will help create a brighter mood. Balance natural light during the day with task lighting and accent lighting such as table lamps or wall sconces. One way to allow more natural light to flow into a room is to simply clean the windows!

7. Accessorize with art, baskets in the bathroom with folded towels and perfume trays, centerpieces and greenery or plants in key locations.

8. Curb Appeal includes a nicely groomed front yard and entryway. Your front door may require a coat of fresh paint along with new door hardware. Perhaps a sitting bench or some nice looking potted plants will dress up the entry. A new welcome mat of sturdy quality will help the initial impression.

9. De-clutter the drawers and closets: Yes they look in there, so having organized drawers and a half empty closet will help the potential home buyer envision their own items in the place of yours, which is the first step toward purchasing the property. The potential home buyers need not be distracted by personal items and clutter, but be able to envision their own items and lifestyle applied to your home, after all you are selling it so the next person will redecorate and change everything around to suit their taste anyways. The easier they can imagine themselves living there, the better chances you will have of selling the property.

10. Send the family pet on sabbatical. As cute as Fluffy or Spot is, many potential home buyers do not own pets or may even be allergic to them. A pet on the premises when the home is being shown may leave the owner to think carpets are ruined and hair or pet odor will remain in the home when they buy it, or they just may subconsciously want to look elsewhere. To appeal to the widest audience, send your little darling(s) to grandma, a friend or relative or someone you know that can take care of them for a while. In the worst case, you may have to pack up fluffy for every showing and drive him or her around the block a few times. (Please don’t leave pets in the car unattended- especially with windows rolled up..)

11. If you have to do any major remodeling, be aware that the new owner may rip out your hard and expensive work and redo it to their taste, so cosmetic fixes will have the best return. If any rooms in the house need to be redone, the most important ones to look at are the kitchens and the bathrooms as they may return the highest percentage of your investment.

Final touches right before a home showing may include freshly cut flowers, the scent of fresh cinnamon boiled on the stove (but remove the pot before the showing), or fresh apples and cookies placed in plain site in the kitchen. Sometimes light music can help create an ambiance.

In any case, selling a home can go smoother if you prepare the home in advance. Having a professionally staged home can save you thousands in the long run, and get your home sold faster.

ENS Ltd’s MD Rebecca Hopkins, a leading sport PR and Crisis Management expert, shares her tips for involving employees in leveraging sponsorship:

“Despite the recession, companies’ involvement in sponsorship has increased and of those sponsorships, sport has proved that it once again leads the field in attracting corporate bucks.

Having worked in the sports sector for well over a decade, advising blue chips on leveraging sponsorship, it surprises me that employee engagement still features in the drop zone on the campaign programme.

To my mind, the larger the company, the harder the organisation should work to engage its staff, as they have the potential to be the biggest advocates of a brands sponsorship activity. When I first started in the sector, I worked for a brand that invested a significant sum in rugby at a time when the company share-price was at rock bottom. For the weeks immediately following the announcement, each of the sponsorship team endured a conversation with a colleague who would suggest that the sum would be better invested in football (as the national passion) or better still, not invested at all. An interesting turn of events came when the employee reward and recognition scheme was implemented. By ensuring that a large percentage of the workforce had a fair chance to attend matches, win signed memorabilia and meet the stars of the sport, the sponsorship team turned opinion around.

Conversely, despite our strongest recommendations, we have seen brands flat out refuse to provide any associated benefits to staff; on asking one brand manager for his logic in denying a small number of tickets to his colleagues, he explained that the sponsorship was for the benefit of the company, not a jolly for the staff. It is my firmly held belief that the staff are a pretty crucial part of any business and the happier and more involved they feel, the better they perform. By all means, ensure that the sales team are provided the bulk of access, if the strategy behind your sponsorship is essentially networking, but dont exclude the reception staff, loading bay operators, engineers or the HR team simply because they cant always produce a tangible ROI from attending the game. The pleasure and sense of participation you can give them with a match ticket or the chance to meet a star will usually generate more goodwill than you can measure.

Here are my tips for involving employees in leveraging sponsorship:

1. The Hello Factor: if you are using any brand ambassadors to promote your business as part of the sponsorship, make sure they do something that gives employees access to them. Even something simple can be effective, such as a personal appearance in the office, so staff can get autographs and pictures.

2. Share the love: dont make tickets the sole preserve of the sales team! You probably have a raft of people who would love the experience of going to a stadium event, even if the teams or sport involved werent ones they would usually support. For example, consider your receptionist. They rarely get these sorts of perks but since they greet everyone who crosses your office threshold, they have the potential to be very positive advocates of how great your sponsorship is provided they have seen first hand what it is you are doing.

3. Doing it for the kids: a number of companies in sport have become heavily involved in creating initiatives for children dont forget that many of your employees are parents too and probably have sports-mad kids at home. Make sure you find ways to present opportunities to them too.

4. Glamour is relative: dont over-estimate the level at which your staff are prepared to help. For example, one company we worked with asked for volunteers to be human signposts at a top-level event which basically meant they could be standing in the rain for eight hours yet we still received over 5,000 responses and the people selected absolutely loved being involved in something so totally different from their day job.

5. Size isnt important: to my mind, sponsorship starts with something as small as getting a box at a football or rugby club. Even this has the potential to go wrong when one manager, who happens to be a huge fan of the team in question, has made the box their fiefdom rather than a company resource. In tough times, expenditure such as this should be made to work even harder. Involve as many staff as possible in this, much as you would in a major initiative.

ENS assisted BT in staging a staff-engagement event prior to the Singapore summit that saw the IOC announce the winning host city of the 2012 Olympics. BT was a premier partner in supporting Londons bid to host the 2012 Olympics.

With the objective of inspiring staff to Back the Bid online, ENS recommended staging a one-day indoor rowing competition, led by BTs Bid Ambassador James Cracknell, across the four regional head offices (London, Edinburgh, Belfast and Cardiff). BT personnel were set two challenges: one was to Crack Cracknell to row further than James did in one minute; the other was to go Rowing for Gold, which involved clocking up kilometres at any chosen speed in a collective attempt to get their building the nearest to Singapore.

The event was staged in such a way that it was open to all staff, including wheelchair users, while employee engagement was maximised through webcasting the event over the company intranet and having challenge results updated every 30 seconds online.

Staff and celebrities took part across four locations with thousands of staff joining in, viewing the events live or signing up to BTs Back the Bid webpage and one staff member, the last to take part, ended up out-rowing James”.

It really makes no difference if you call it home staging or home fluffing; the goal is the same – to get your home sold quickly and for the greatest amount of money. Theres an abundance of articles and information which will tell you how to go about staging your home. But these often forget the basic premise that will make the difference between leaving money on the table and maximizing the equity in your home.

That basic premise does not involve cleaning, painting, repairing, or moving; its a change in perspective. You stop seeing your house as your home and see it as a product. To do this effectively you must put aside your ego and view the home selling process without emotion.

So what does this mean? First off, it means you realize you arent selling your home youre selling someone else’s dream. But it doesnt stop there; once you understand that your home is a commodity and youre marketing a dream, thats when the real shift has to take place and your ego needs to move aside.

The way you decorate and live in your home is probably not the best way to market your home. Ouch! Even if you clean until the whole house sparkles and you declutter and depersonalize, its likely that your personality and the way you relate to the rooms in your home will shine through. Its a safe bet that your home is decorated to suit your individual tastes, not the broad market. Too often this is the point where the homeseller draws the line, “Thats it, no further! I think this house looks great! Id buy it, and if Id buy it, other people will buy it.”

What a shame! Its likely you just turned your back on cash. The truth is, if your house is priced correctly for the market, somebody will buy it. But in terms of maximizing your selling price, numbers count. The more people who fall in love with your house, the better the chance youll maximize your equity. However its more than just getting the “right” number of people or the right price. Ask any marketing professional price and packaging go hand in hand. The better the packaging is at selling the dream, the higher the price a consumer is willing to pay.

Thats where a professional home stager comes into the picture. Home Stagers understand the art and science of marketing homes. Since they have no attachment to the contents or decorating style of your home they can view your home objectively and make the changes that will maximize your sales price.

Professional home stagers specialize in marketing dreams, they do it everyday.