How to find the perfect host family

May 20, 2010

Lots of families want to host foreign students. But not all of them want to do it for the right reasons. How do you find excellent home stay families? Here are a few tips.

Offer a Prospective Host Family Information Session about your school. Host families should know what a typical school day is like, what kinds of things the students will be learning and what type of extra-curricular activities you offer. Having them tour the school and meet a few key staff members will give them a sense of how the school operates. You can make this mandatory for prospective host families. The way to do that is to schedule Prospective Host Family Information Sessions on a regular basis – say once a semester or even once a month. Hand out the Host Family Application Package at the Information Session. If families want to apply to host a student, an adult member of the family must attend the information session because that’s when and where the application packages are handed out. If a family can’t be bothered to attend an information session, you probably don’t want them hosting a student.

At this meeting, outline your expectations of the host families. Typical expectations are:

  • Provide 2-3 well-balanced nutritious meals.
  • Provide laundry-facilities that are not coin operated.
  • Provide clean linens (towels, face clothes and bed linens).
  • Spend time with the student practicing the language they’re learning every day.
  • Invite (but don’t oblige) the student to take part in family activities.

Have them fill out an application. In addition to the usual name, phone number and address, the application should ask:

  • How many children are in the home – including their names and ages
  • If they have pets and if so, how many and what kind
  • Why they’d like to be a host family. (Hint: If they respond, “Because we need the money”, think twice before accepting them as a family for one of  your students.)
  • What types of foods do they eat?
  • What kinds of activities do they like to do?

Asking questions like these will help you match students with families. For example, you don’t want to pair a student who is allergic to dogs with a family of dog enthusiasts. Vegetarian students may be well matched with a family that doesn’t eat much meat. A host family that loves to go geocaching may be the perfect fit for a techie student who loves the outdoors. You get the idea.

Request references. Your application form should also include a spot for the names of two or three references, as well as their contact information. References should not be other family members. Examples of good references include pastors, family doctors, work colleagues and even family friends. The reference check doesn’t have to be intensive, but it is part of your due diligence in selecting families. You want to ask these references questions such as:

  • How do you know this family?
  • What kind of people are they?
  • Do you think they’d be good hosts for an international student? If so, why? If not, why not?
  • Would be comfortable allowing your son or daughter to live with them? Why or why not?

Request a police checks for all adult members of the household. Sound harsh? Not really. More and more schools and non-profit organizations are requesting police checks from their staff and volunteers. Check with your local police station about how to get police checks done. If there’s a form to fill out, include a copy in your host family application package as a courtesy. A speeding ticket or other minor offense may not disqualify them as a host family, but if you don’t check, you may not know the whole picture. Who pays for these checks? The host family does.

Conduct a home inspection. So, the host family has attended your information session. Their application looks good. Their references were glowing. Their police check is clean. Everything looks good. But to be sure, send a staff member to inspect the home. Garbage and old tires piled on the front porch is not a good sign. (And yes, I’ve actually seen this.) Inspect the home as if you were the student arriving from another country. The host family needs to provide:

  • A private bedroom for the student. This may seem obvious, but that room should have a door that closes. Curtains are not an acceptable “door”.
  • A window. Basement bedrooms without windows are not only dark, they are a fire hazard.
  • Somewhere to store clothing and other personal belongings. A closest stacked with old linens with no room for the student’s belongings is unacceptable.
  • A desk and chair for studying.
  • A clean bed, with linens.

There are no guarantees that following these steps will get you the perfect host family every time, but they’ll certainly help you eliminate those who are just in it for the money, or who think of foreign students as extra help around the house.

Related posts:

5 qualities of the perfect host family http://wp.me/pNAh3-6c

Sample Host Family Application http://wp.me/pNAh3-fv

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

2 Comments | ESL, second languages, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

What do others really think about your marketing materials?

May 17, 2010

Ever heard the expression, “He couldn’t see the forest for the trees”? It refers to someone who loses his perspective on a situation because they are too involved (and invested) in the situation to see it clearly. This is what can happen when you market your program. You may think that your current brochures, web page, etc. are just fine– but what do others think about them? Do you really know?

What’s the solution? Have your marketing materials audited. If you have your current marketing materials audited, you may get a clearer picture of what outsiders really think of your materials – and your program. An audit is usually conducted by an impartial third party, and it involves an objective evaluation of your materials to determine what is good about them and what you need to improve.

This may mean hiring a marketing professional or educational consultant to review what you currently have. What she will probably do is review and assess how you:
•    use branding (for example, your logo and image)
•    convey the information (language, style, readability)
•    use colour, graphics, font and typesetting
•    can make your marketing more effective

An audit may also include an evaluation of the texture and quality of paper you choose for your printed materials, the accessibility of your web site, a ranking of your web site in search engines or an evaluation of your office stationery. These are all factors to consider when you are thinking about how you present your image to the world.

An audit of your marketing material done by an objective outsider may surprise you. A good consultant will give you no-nonsense feedback about your marketing materials and valuable information on how to improve them. These improvements may give your school the competitive edge it lacks.

There are hundreds of marketing consultants out there. It may benefit you to hire someone who specializes in educational or international marketing so you can get the best assessment possible.

Once the audit is complete, you will then have to decide which, if any, of the auditor’s recommendations to use. This will depend on cost, time and your own perception of how you wish to present your school. But inevitably, you will come away with a fresh perspective on how others view your school through your marketing materials.

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This post is an adapted excerpt from 101 Ways to Market Your Language Program It is been adapted from “Idea # 8: Have your current marketing materials audited.”

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

1 Comment | 101 Ways to Market Your Language Program, ESL, marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

How to price ESL or other second language programs powerfully

May 13, 2010

Figuring out how to price a program can be tricky. It can be even trickier to adjust the price of a program that has already been established. If your price is too high, prospects may balk. If your price is too low, they may think that it is poor quality. It doesn’t pay to offer bargain basement prices if you pride yourself on quality.

Before you price your program, you will want to determine your costs. Your cost for a program will include obvious things such as:

•    instructors’ salaries
•    learning materials (books, CDs, etc.)
•    excursions (including any lunches or entrance fees to museums, etc.)
•    accommodation (homestay, dorm or hotel)
•    insurance (medical and accident insurance for your students, for example)
•    photocopies
•    catering

And there are the not-so-obvious costs included in your overhead that you will want to factor in as well. These may include:

•    support staff salaries
•    office supplies (including stationery and business cards)
•    marketing materials (brochures, business cards, etc.)
•    any other printing
•    postage
•    rent (including any special events you may host, such as a graduation)
•    phone, fax, and Internet expenses
•    utilities and any other overhead costs
•    computing and technology expenses (including language lab maintenance and tech support)

Once you have determined your own costs, you divide the total cost by the lowest number of participants you expect to have. That way, you will know what your break-even point is.

Here’s a highly simplified example:

$5000 (your total costs, as determined by the list above) divided by 100 (the lowest number of students you expect to have) = $500

This means that you would charge each student at least $500 just to cover your costs.

But covering your costs isn’t enough. You need to ensure that your program is sustainable. So, you need think about how to price your program, using your break-even cost as a starting point.

Because hidden and unexpected costs inevitably occur during any program, one technique used by big institutions is to double your costs, at the very least. For specialized or custom-designed programs, you may be able to triple or quadruple your costs and use that as your price point.

Let’s re-do the math, tripling your base costs:

$5000 (your total costs, as determined by the list above) x 3 = $15,000

$15,000 divided by 100 (the lowest number of students you expect to have) = $1500

So, $1500 is what you would charge each student as tuition.

Sound too high? I have found that as educators, we tend to be reluctant to price ourselves out of the market. Remember that if your price is too low, prospects may not take you seriously. And you can always subsidize some programs if others are doing very well. It’s about finding a balance that will work for your school.

You also want to plan for unexpected increases in your costs. For example, in the past ten years in Canada insurance rates have skyrocketed, in some cases more than doubling. If a school hadn’t forecast such an increase, they might be left scrambling to make ends meet.

Another example is rising costs of natural gas, which can affect the heating and water bills for your school (or your rent). If you haven’t budgeted for such increases, it can seriously affect the sustainability of your program. These are examples from a Canadian context, but the principle applies to any school in any country. You need to plan for the unexpected. This isn’t about gouging your students; it’s about ensuring that you can continue to serve them into the future. It’s responsible.

Even if your program is non-profit, I encourage you to price your program responsibly. Should a miracle happen and you make “too much money”, you can give your staff a raise or hire more staff, re-vamp your website, buy better books or add another computer to your lab. You get the idea. You can re-invest in your own program to ensure it can continue in the future.

Speaking of being responsible, I strongly recommend that you tell your prospects exactly what they are getting for their money; they are more likely to understand what they are paying for, and they will be more likely to buy.

What do you include in your pricing? Books? Homestay? Excursions? Make sure that you list on your marketing materials what is included in the price. Some schools charge extra for students to take exams, so if your school doesn’t, be sure to list that.

Here’s an example of what you could write:

Our price includes:
•    25 hours of instruction per week
•    books and learning materials
•    CD ROM of practice activities
•    homestay (including 3 meals per day)
•    medical and accident insurance
•    all tests and exams
•    graduation ceremony
•    certificate of completion
•    final written evaluation of your performance

By pricing your program powerfully and letting students know exactly what they are getting for their money, you will gain both respect and increased enrolment.

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This post is an excerpt from 101 Ways to Market Your Language Program It is “Idea 7: Price your program powerfully.

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

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Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

How much should educational programs spend on marketing?

May 10, 2010

One of the major pitfalls of marketing plans for language programs is that directors and coordinators are given little or no budget to work with. Time and time again I have heard, “We have no money for marketing!” The reality is that you are going to need to spend at least some money, and probably a fair amount of time, promoting your program if you want it to grow and flourish.

There are varying theories about how much an organization should spend on marketing to be effective. It’s hard to know how to to budget. Here are a few tips for those working in the educational sector.

It is important for you to decide, together with your staff and school administrators or owners, how much you are willing to invest in it. Bringing all the players to the table may be a difficult task in itself, but if you are serious about marketing your program, you need to be serious about how much you really have to work with to get the job done.

Being brutally honest about how much of your resources you can allocate to marketing will help you target your dollars in the most effective way. The first step is sitting down with a calculator and figuring out exactly how much you have to work with.

One place to start is to look at your gross income for last year and use 10 to 20% of that for marketing. This may seem like a lot, but if you can grow your program another 10 to 20% (a safe estimate), you will have more than made your money back.

When I say 10-20%, this also includes the salaries or hourly wages of those working on marketing endeavours. So, if you have a marketing coordinator, that salary will be included here.

At the very least, you should know how much you are spending on marketing now. For heaven’s sake, don’t bury it in categories such as “office supplies” or some other budget line that makes it impossible for you to know what you’ve actually spent. Even if your budget categories are rigid and there’s no line for marketing, keep a separate tally somewhere in a file that you can refer back to. Every year, assess how much you’ve really spent on marketing and if it’s too much or enough. If you’re spending more than 25% on marketing and not getting the return you expect, then it may be time to change how you market, not how much you spend on marketing.

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This post is adapted from “Idea #6: Be honest about how much you are willing and able to invest in marketing” in 101 Ways to Market Your Language Program

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

1 Comment | 101 Ways to Market Your Language Program, ESL, languages, marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

Specialized courses: Essential for a healthy marketing mix

April 28, 2010

In 1982, W.P. Kinsella wrote Shoeless Joe, a novel that was later turned into a major Hollywood movie starring Kevin Costner. The most famous line of the book is, “If you build it, he will come.” The basic premise of the book is that if you have an idea or a dream, go with it. The rest will take care of itself.

While this feel-good book, and the movie it was made into, may smack of naïveté on some level, the main principle is one that we can use in marketing our schools. If you build a specialized program, based on a sound curriculum that you can deliver well, the students will come.

Is there something that your school does better than any other in your area? Do you have a program to train foreign language teachers? Do you offer a specialized course in medical or veterinary terminology, for example? How about a course in business communications? If you have at least one course or program that differentiates you from other schools, you can focus on being the best there is for that specialty. You can still offer basic language training or other programs, but having a specialized niche will ensure you a unique market share, and add both revenue and students to your program. It can also add flair and a sense of uniqueness to your program. I’ve seen programs that offer English and sports or English and activities such as surfing, and they truly set themselves apart from the hundreds of other English programs in the world.

Specialized courses often referred to as “ESP” or “English for Specific Purposes”, in the English as a Second / Additional Language field. Together, generalized and specialized courses combine to form your marketing mix. Finding the right mix can boost your revenue significantly.

Specialized courses deserve special attention in your marketing plan. For example, if you offer a program for language teachers from foreign countries, you could easily research the contact information for language schools abroad and add that information to your database.  Then you have the tools to do a targeted direct mail campaign to those schools that would catch the attention of those teachers and school administrators.

Also consider that specialized courses likely require specialized curricula. You’ll want to ensure that whatever materials you are using fit your niche market really well.

Generally, it takes longer to see results for specialized programs. That is because it may take prospects longer to find out about your niche and respond to your marketing. I’ve seen more than one niche program fail because administrators gave up on it too early. One semester or session is not enough to test the market to determine if there is a demand for your specialized course. These types of program may require extra attention in their infancy, simply because their target market is very specific.

You may want to dedicate a certain amount of time (for example, one hour a week for an entire year) just to marketing this particular program. This may mean contacting associations, schools or other audiences with an interest in your niche to advise them of your program. For example, if you have a program to train teachers, then a direct mailing to teachers’ associations abroad may help you promote these courses. It may cost you time to build your mailing list, or it may cost you money to buy such a list. You won’t see a return on your investment until participants begin to enroll.

If you persist, within a couple of years, you can have a booming program.  The trick is to carve yourself a niche and be patient while the world discovers your uniqueness. If you build it… they will come.

This post is adapted from “Idea #5: Carve yourself a niche” in 101 Ways to Market Your Language Program.

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Update – January 2018 – This blog has had over 1.8 million views thanks to readers like you. If you enjoyed this post, please “like” it or share it on social media. Thanks!

Sarah Elaine Eaton is a faculty member in the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada.

1 Comment | 101 Ways to Market Your Language Program, education, ESL, marketing, marketing mix, Uncategorized | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Sarah Elaine Eaton, Ph.D.

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