Before you record
State the project, the what/why/how much in one sentence each, and the one cost you expect to be challenged on. If you cannot name that cost yet, find it now — it will come up.
What the recording has to do
Assessment criteria
| Criterion | What it means | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Structure | What → why → how much, and the cost stated before it is asked for | 25% |
| Objection handling | Acknowledge → reframe → propose, on every genuine pushback | 30% |
| Register | Diplomatic distance and intonation matched to what you actually mean — open where it is open, held where it is held | 25% |
| Grammar | Second and third conditional used accurately for what is still open versus already decided | 20% |
Note the weight on objection handling, not on winning the objection. A recording where you concede a genuine point gracefully scores higher than one where you win every exchange by refusing to move. The task is not to defend every number successfully — it is to run the meeting well.
Plan the six minutes
On one sheet, before recording:
- The what, why, how much — one sentence each
- The cost most likely to be challenged, and whether you will hold or offer
- One genuine alternative you could propose if asked
- One thing you are genuinely uncertain about, scoped precisely
- How you will close — what does Mr. Alvarez actually decide by the end?
Record the presentation
Portfolio piece 9 of 10
Your chosen project · six minutes · live objection handling
Record the presentation you would actually give a new client.
- Six minutes, including at least two genuine objections your teacher raises live.
- State your own number before it is asked for.
- End with a clear next step Mr. Alvarez can actually decide on.
Lesson 1, revisited
Watch or listen back to your Lesson 1 baseline beside today’s recording and answer:
- Did Lesson 1 state the cost, or wait to be asked?
- Did Lesson 1 acknowledge before defending, anywhere?
- Listen to your intonation on any reservation in each — flat, or fall-rise?
- Which ended with something the listener could actually decide on?
A final check on the unit. Each sentence has one conditional error.
1. If we would phase the wall, we would keep this year’s number under budget.
2. If we had priced the spa separately, you would not have been surprised by this number now.
3. If we specified a segmental gravity wall from the start, we would not have needed the engineering.
4. If the bid would come in under budget, we would not have this conversation.
Unit 9 complete
You can now: present a design stating your own cost before being asked, acknowledge an objection before defending against it, tell a still-open option from an already-closed one in your grammar, and hold a contour that matches what you actually mean rather than defaulting to flat. That is the B2 can-do statement for this unit, and it is signed off.
Next unit: the professional voice — writing a bio and a design proposal, explaining your Brazilian training to a US audience, and holding a peer conversation about the profession. The capstone.
Homework before Unit 10. Find your own licence number and every place it appears across your four sets. Bring one sentence explaining, to someone who has never heard of it, what a landscape designer’s licence actually authorises you to do — and one sentence on how that differs from a landscape architect’s.