Upcoming Courses

Facilitated Online Learning

2 young girls working on a writing assignment

Summer 2026 Author-Led Book Study | June 23-August 4

Join us for a guided book study designed to help educators develop their pedagogical language knowledge through a functional approach — based on our new book “Building a Language Toolkit for Teachers” from Routledge. Led by authors Sally Humphrey and Ruslana Westerlund.

Register
Register

Here are examples of other workshops and courses we offer.

They can also be tailored for local professional learning upon request.

There’s Always More to Learn

  • Writing Across Disciplines

  • Analyzing Student Data Using WIDA and CA ELD Proficiency Level Descriptors

  • Supporting Multilingual Learners: Providing Access to Complex Texts

  • Disciplinary Literacy in Grades 3-12

  • Cohesive Devices for Comprehension and Flow

  • The Teaching and Learning Cycle for Disciplinary Genres

  • Lesson Planning with the WIDA ELD Standards or CA ELD Standards

A Look Inside: Building Your Visible Language Pedagogy Toolkit

Science texts can be dense and difficult to understand. Teachers can help students see language patterns — “discourse features” — instead of a wall of text. They learn to unpack and digest complex texts rather than skim them.

That’s just one example.

Picture of a "Discourse Features in Science Texts" tool from a workshop

Here are other Visible Language Pedagogy practices that use systemic functional linguistics to empower students.

    • UNIT LEVEL
      Chaining of Lessons and Learning Experiences: Engineer success through careful sequencing of lessons through macro- and micro- pedagogical scaffolding.


    • LESSON LEVEL
      Analyze Language Demands: Teach the unique language features of disciplinary genres: scientific explanations, historical arguments, and literary analysis essays.


    • CLASSROOM LEVEL
      Teaching and Learning Cycle: Use an apprenticeship pedagogy that moves students from deconstructing mentor texts to independent mastery

    • Sense-Making Through Talk: Design talk-centered learning classrooms where students talk about concepts, ideas, and language in the context of text

    • The Mode Continuum: Strategically shift students from spoken-like hands-on learning and “everyday” language to authoritative expert-like writing.

    • Text Unpacking: Empower students by taking the mystery out of dense academic texts by identifying expanded noun groups, clause relationships, and implicit causality.

    • Deconstruction and Joint Construction: After students have built their conceptual knowledge, teacher apprentices students to the language of the genre.

    • Metalinguistic Reflection: Students learn that language is THEIR resource for accomplishing THEIR purposes in and outside of school.

    • Explicit modeling and deconstruction of language of the genre, so students understand how texts work and can take increasing ownership of meaning-making

    • Structured opportunities for joint and independent construction, gradually releasing responsibility from teacher to student

    • Clear success criteria and reflection, enabling students to monitor, revise, and strengthen their own language and thinking