On Thursday, October 1, we will be presenting an OUP webinar titled Spiraling Into Control: Meeting the needs of beginning writers.

This practice-oriented webinar draws on some of our biggest influences, including Eli Hinkle, Ken Hyland, and Diane Larsen-Freeman, who provide possible answers for one of the biggest questions in second language writing.  How can we help beginning writers communicate original ideas with very little language?

The answer seems to lie in being more efficient.

By examining the different language and discourse patterns that appear in typical writing around an assignment, we can extrapolate and teach the specific language students are likely to need.  By preparing students with target language before they write, they can then draw upon it as a resource when they write.  And as in all lesson plans, when we spiral language and skills into the task incrementally, we have the opportunity to support but not overwhelm.

The spiral begins with high frequency, topic related vocabulary that is then recycled and repurposed in collocations, grammar structures, and sentence frames.  Next, this focused language becomes a resource for students to draw upon as they express their ideas through guided writing assignments.

For more information about the webinar and to register, please click here.  The webinar is free and is sponsored by Oxford University Press.

To learn more about the Spiraling Lesson Plan, click here for a link to a blog post we recently published about how language is spiraled in our new series, Trio Writing.