Webinar Summary: Virginia´s Approach to Writing Materials and her Projection of Future Trends

In her webinar, Virginia described a shift in the market for teaching materials over the past decade, showed examples of texts used in the workplace and how to use them to approve a learner´s communication skills, outlined new trends in writing materials, and answered interesting questions asked by the participants.

At the beginning of the webinar, Virginia provided a brief overview of her experience. From 2008 to 2010, Virginia´s goal was to fill a hole in the ESP market with coursebooks for nurses aimed at developing their communication skills in clinical settings. Since 2014, she has both been helping nursing candidates to prepare for OET, and writing a series of online Medical English courses fo SLC.

She listed examples of workplace-based language associated with each communication skill. For instance, doctor-patient interactions to practice speaking, hospital documentation to enhance reading comprehension, informal sessions about new equipment or drugs to develop listening skills, and making notes in a patient file to improve writing. She also mentioned materials that deserve more attention due to technological developments in the workplace such as emails, phone and video consultations. She considers them challenging both for a writer/teacher and learners.

In the second part, Virginia presented a list of things she considers before writing and a list of characteristics that materials should have. She highlighted the integration of communication skills, using up-to-date sources of information, the optimum length of texts, how to customize materials for the specific needs of a teacher and their students, and the healthcare environment in a particular culture, and many others.

Watch the webinar to find out more about Virginia´s approach:

• What does Virginia want to achieve with her materials?
• What does Virginia want to help with?
• What do learners want to achieve?
• What does Virginia take into consideration before writing course materials?
• What characteristics should modern materials have?

You will also get the answers to specific questions asked by the participants on the following:

• Tools used to find out learners´ needs
• How to approach writing materials for both pre-service and in-service healthcare professionals
• Digital vs. hard copy coursebooks
• Minimum requirements of student’s communication skills and knowledge of medical English
• How to approach teaching groups with different levels of language skills
• The latest and future trends in material writing
• Types of texts which are currently in demand by healthcare professionals in the workplace