Session plans and workshop outlines
As you will note from my teaching log, I have been teaching Foundation Training, Practice Groups and bespoke workshops over the past three years. At the beginning of my teaching practice, I was mostly assisting other trainers as a teacher’s aid, which included modelling activities, or presenting an agreed component of the event. As I developed my knowledge I felt more confident to teach solo. I have a background in adult education and online learning so I was keen to develop as a trainer of NVC. I have treated each course type differently in terms of lesson planning, resource development and delivery. Below are some examples of my lesson and workshop plans. I have also included sample slides as pdf and video clips for your perusal.
Introduction to NVC training
Alex Norman and I produced three videos, powerpoint slides and a detailed program for a one hour taster introduction. The three videos were Suffering in Silence, The Confrontation and NVC in Action. It was a lot of work but we had a good number of interested participants. We practiced before we presented and were rather pleased with our efforts. I remember being very anxious about running Zoom while teaching and also rather shy about my part in the video recordings, but in preparing this portfolio, I see it differently. I don’t need to feel anxious or shy. The presentation unfolded without any glitches and the videos are effective and worked very well in the session. Alex and I took turns teaching different sections of the presentation. It was a successful collaborative project.
Here is some feedback from the online evaluation form.
I’m taking away how to communicate from a heart centred space to encourage understanding and connection with others but firstly ourselves. How to observe situations as opposed to evaluating and judging them which relies on our perceptions. How to listen out for others feelings and needs in conversations. While also listening out and identifying our own. I have nothing really by way of improvements - it was all great. I loved the way it ran and flowed. I loved the group work, the examples used to help us to understand the techniques. Elizabeth is a great host and I appreciated her participation and support throughout the course. And with Alex It’s such a pleasure to learn NVC from a facilitator who is so passionate about the technique. So glad I did the course with you both. by female naturopath.
Foundation Training, Face to Face
Due to the pandemic, I have had little opportunity to teach face to face. However, last November, I gave it a go and offered a face to face training at my home with seven lovely local people from my gym class. Some of them attended to ‘help me out’, while others came with a desire to address real life communication issues they were having either at work, or in a hobby or family situation. The program followed the 12 hour, two day, face to face program set out in Dorset’s Foundation training manual along with guidance from Cate, particularly NVC 2 day FT Gina Lawrie, and my experiences of other Foundation Trainings as outlined in my training and teaching logs. Here is the program and here are the slides. I used the slides as support for the teaching. I made my own activities, NVC Dance Floor, Jackal and Giraffe puppets, and Tony recorded the entire two days so that I can provided clips of my face to face teaching. These clips are provided in the Section, Video Recordings. Alex Norman gave me permission to use her manual under my business name. Here is the C2C manual. As an inkind payment, I had a graphic designer redesign the manual format into her branding for her use. And finally, here is a link to each of the worksheets and handouts over the two days:
Worksheet 1 - Scenario, Worksheet 2 - Self connection and expressing with honesty
Handout 1 - Feelings list, Handout 2 - Faux feelings, Handout 3 - Needs List, Handout 4 - Jackal Notebook, Handout 5 - Giraffe Notebook, Handout 6 - Empathy (3-2-1), Handout 7 - NVC Dance Floor, Handout 8 - Evaluation
Participant evaluations are provided in the participant feedback section of the Portfolio.
Foundation Training via Zoom
I have been offering Foundation Training on a Tuesday night, stretching over a five week period. The class is 2hrs, so the whole course is 10hrs. While this is 2 hrs less than a face to face Foundation Training, I truncate the program due to the exhausting nature of the online environment. After a survey of participants, the preferred mode of delivery was 5wks x 10hrs on a weeknight. The course includes powerpoint slides, the set of Foundation activities modeled by Alex Norman and from Cate Crombie and Shari Elle. I have adapted them to the online environment and work to improve them to take best advantage of the online format while staying true to the intention of the activity. I am supported by Tony, who acts as Zoom driver and break out room coordinator so that I can concentrate on teaching, remain connected to the learners and use the time as efficiently as possible. Here is the latest set of plans for a five week Foundation Training: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4 and Week 5. These align with the slides: Week 1 slides, Week 2 slides, Week 3 slides, Week 4 slides and Week 5 slides
Below are two Google Reviews which participants posted. Other evaluations are provided in the participant feedback section of the Portfolio.
C2C Practice Group
The C2C Practice Group is offered at the end of my five week online Foundation Training. It is designed as review and growth across the three modes. It consists of four x 90 min, consecutive Tuesday nights. Each block begins with a meditation & empathy practice, followed by one activity per week related to self connection, empathetic listening and honest self expression. Here are session plan examples of one block of four.
Week 1 program, Week 2 program, Week 3 program, Week 4 program
From participant feedback and my own evaluation, it seems that the blocks of four aren’t ideal following a Foundation course. I haven’t yet decided if I will continue this offering. It will depend on how future Foundation Training goes and what participants are looking for after foundation training. I will be working on this over the second half of 2023.
Shoalhaven Practice Group
The Shoalhaven Practice Group meets monthly, sometimes face to face but more regularly via zoom. I use the Ongo book for the sessions. While I am mostly the sole facilitator, when we are face to face, Karen and I will share the role and work in collaboration. Recently we shared a session on rites of passage, core beliefs and transformation. There are about 15 women on the mailing list. I feel welcomed and connected to the women. When we have face to face sessions, we do it on a Sunday, and combine lunch and practice. It is an enriching and warm experience.
Thanks Elizabeth,
Really appreciate your diligence and commitment to creating community . Meeting my needs for support connection compassion
Karen 🙏
Bespoke workshops - Agrifutures
I was invited to offer an introductory workshop on workplace communication for a research organisation called Agrifutures. They were wanting a session for their planning day which was engaging but also relevant to their workshop issues. I spent some time talking to their HR and senior executive before designing an OFNR activity, comparing jackal and giraffe workplace messages. The workshop was very favourably received which led to an invitation to provide a half day later on in the year.
Below is the program for the half day session for Agrifutures on written and spoken workplace communication
Session 1: (30 mins) Language we do and don’t enjoy.
Session 2: (45 mins) Saying what we mean in difficult moments – part 1 Someone else’s scenario
Break (10 mins)
Session 3: (45 mins) Saying what we mean in difficult moments – part 2 My scenario
Break (10 mins)
Session 4 (30 mins): Wrangling with written communications in the workplace
Session 5 (30 mins): Embodying our communication activity, NVC Dance floor
Session 6 (10 mins): Wrap up and evaluation.
The sessions were a mixture of information exchange, pair-work activities and whole group ‘harvests’. The final session was on our feet, stepping through our new language skills.
Bespoke workshops - Empathy workshop, Macquarie University
View the YouTube video which outlines the content of the workshop which formed part of the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics (ASFLA) 2022 conference, Macquarie University.
Abstract: This workshop demonstrates empathetic listening, ‘a process of listening for the needs behind the pain’ (Rosenberg 2015), taking the view that it is a text type with schematic stages, both obligatory and optional (Hasan 1996). The workshop will introduce the Rosenberg model of empathy, noting how it can be expressed using Hasan’s Generic Structure Potential (GSP) notation. Following on from a recorded example with an annotated transcript of the instantiation, the workshop will offer participants an opportunity to deconstruct the semantic and lexicogrammatical features before participating in dyads of giving and receiving empathy using the stages of the model. Participants will take turns jointly constructing a scenario from which empathetic listening arises. The workshop will conclude with participant feedback on what it was like to offer and receive empathy using the Rosenberg model.
From an SFL perspective, we look at empathy as a genre with a specific register, using generic structure potential (obligatory and optional components), and consider what empathy isn’t.
The semantic interrogation looks at
the translation of negative appraisal of unmet needs into a positive construal of universal needs of us humans. It is about looking behind the pain to find the needs and using positive appraisal resources to express them.
And grammatically it is about
topichood – who is the empathy directed to.. you or I?;
its about present tense and mental processes,
paraphrasing and summarising from the perspective of respectfully guessing
The participants will have opportunity to deconstruct, and construct empathetic dialogic exchanges as part of the workshop
Bespoke workshops - Listen to hear, speak to be understood, YES Campaign
I signed up as a volunteer for the Yes23 Reference campaign. I wanted to contribute and I had the time so I signed up. I was on various information stalls outside supermarkets handing out pamphlets when I found myself on the receiving end of strong emotions from angry No voters. While I was surprised, I wasn’t particularly impacted by the treatment because I understood the difference between stimulus and cause. I knew I wasn’t the cause of the anger, but for whatever reason, the anger was directed at me and my other Yes buddies on the stalls. I witnessed the Yes volunteers reacting with a lot of pain and shock. I realised that my Yes buddyies probably needed some tools to manage the experience. I offered to run an empathy workshop for them with the aim of extending empathy to the No voters, to understand that the Yes volunteers were not the cause of the anger, and that there were feelings and needs at stake for the No voters which needed a compassionate response. I ran two workshops: Sept 5 and 25. The title of the workshop above links to the pamphlet which advertised the event to Yes volunteers.
Bespoke workshops - Responding to hard-to-hear Messages, Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education
Arising out of the empathy workshops with the Yes volunteers came a request from the NGO, Edmund Rice Centre for Justice and Community Education. This organisation was working very hard for the Yes campaign, both lay members and religious. I presented a modified version of the Yes Campaign workshop. What was a surprise to me was just how much pain the members were in, including the nuns. There was such anguish and shock in relation to No voters being strident and triggered. It was so gratifying to have something to offer them. It is a testament to NVC, that it functions as a tool for connection with self and others. We did a version of 5-2-1 which had very positive feedback. There was a deep desire to understand the No voter but without a language of connection, they struggled. There was an obvious settling in the attendees by the end of the session.
Bespoke workshops - NVC face-to-face Foundation Course, Kookaburra House, Shoalhaven Defence Families Association
Due to Tony’s air force career, we have close connections with the defence and veterans organisations. Kookaburra House, Shoalhaven Defence Families Association is a not-for-profit organisation set up to bring fun, friendship and support to defence and civilian families in the Shoalhaven and surrounding areas. Every Thursday, members have a workshop session. I have been invited to present communication workshops. To date, I have conducted two workshops: Language we enjoy (Aug 10); and Observations, Feelings, Needs and Requests (Oct 5).
Bespoke workshops - Supervising with Compassion, University of Wollongong
As an Adjunct Fellow at University of Wollongong, I supervise postgraduate students. Due to this connection, my colleagues were curious about my NVC work. I was invited to present on Supervising with Compassion as the professoriate were finding the task of supervising staff a challenge. I modified my Introduction to NVC lecture for the event and asked attendees to use a supervision scenario as they worked through the components and modes of the framework. I was very happy when the feedback on the day illustrated an understanding of the criticality of the supervisor’s responses and capacity to empathise to positively impact the outcome. I witnessed thoughtful reflections by the attendees following the event.
International Intensive NVC Training, New Zealand
When I attended the NZ IIT, I was hoping to have an opportunity to facilitate training. As you can see from my session plans, I am the kind of person that prepares in order to ensure I stay on track, meet my objectives and provide useful learning/teaching resources. I seek feedback and make adjustments as my training unfolds. However, I hoped to use the IIT as an opportunity to teach/facilitate without much preparation. I was wanting to be receptive to needs in the moment and so keen to see how competent I was with the content and methods of delivery to a group of enthusiastic NVCers. I was hoping that they would be an understanding, supportive group as I experiemented. I gave three sessions.
NVC Dance Floor
This was an hour long session in which I stepped a ‘wobbly giraffe’ speaker through the three paths on the dance floor: self connection, empathetic listening and honest self expression. I did not prepare for the session, I set up the Dance Floor quickly using some novel ways to illustrate intention, attention and the inner and otter. I explained the three paths, then gave possible language examples at each card. I then supported my wobbly giraffe was she stepped through her real life scenario. During the session, I moved between support of the giraffe and learning/teaching when it was clear there was confusion or moments for understanding. I was present and involved with my wobbly giraffe’s engagement with the dance flr. At times, I modelled possible formulations of the each step. I checked in with the giraffe through reflection and empathy as the process unfolded. But there was a lot to do in the hour and I was concerned that my wobbly giraffe was possibly getting confused and anxious. I was overly confident thinking that I could explain, model and support a learner through the dance floor within the hour. It was a real learning experience for me. I realised that it was unrealistic to do the three paths in one go. Best to divide them up and take it more slowly.
Tips on Feelings and Thoughts
I wanted to introduce my take on feelings, faux feelings and thoughts as a quick workshop. I was hearing encouragement in the retreat to ‘bring our gifts’ to our practice of NVC. So I decided to bring some linguistics into the mix and hold a session about tips on the choice of feelings. Here are the notes I wrote the morning of the session without much time. The session was about 45 mins long. I had 8 participants and I was really happy with the outcome. When the 30 mins was up and I wasn’t quite finished, everyone wanted me to continue. I got to the end and we all went to bed quite energised. I have provided the participant feedback in the feedback section of the portfolio.
A sweet activity on Gratitude and Appreciation
As the retreat was coming to an end I thought I would offer this activity which I have found is a lovely way to end a training, particularly as participants begin to look towards home. As there is usually some excitement and also anxiety about going home, thinking about what it is your love and appreciate about people at home brings a warmth to the prospect of going home. I based the activity on this slide from my Foundation Training. I did no preparation, but rather just remembered the activity, introduced it and facilitated the turn taking. It was a very sweet activity with most of the participants lying on cushions on the floor feeling safe, relaxed and open. By the end everyone was feeling very warm and tender. I felt very happy at the end of that day. I received feedback which is offered in the feedback section.
