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How I Work

What’s it like to work with the Learning Curve? On this page I’ll tell you the kind of results my clients have reported and give you a sense of my core beliefs, approach to training, and how I’m different from other writing instructors.

Expected Results

What results can you expect? You can look forward to the following results after offering my training classes to your employees:

• Documents and emails written by program participants will make better sense—without wasting time on additional clarification.
• Your “numbers people” will understand how to adapt their writing to a general audience and be willing to do it.
• Your English language learners will understand more of what you say, and you will understand them better too.
• English language learners will gain confidence in their ability to participate in quality improvement through improved speaking and writing.
• Employees’ writing and speaking skills will be transformed by coaching.
• Employees will enjoy the training and apply what they have learned.
• The common ground created by shared writing experiences will help standardize your organization’s “style,” and improve your image with your customers or constituents.

My Beliefs

Training is the best way to develop the talent of your established employees—those who already know your business. Promoting smart people who already know your business makes sense. Employees who are good with numbers or science may have avoided—or simply not understood—English classes. They, and others who speak a first language other than English, may have the oral skills but not the writing skills to promote them to levels equal to their innate abilities. Capitalize on their strengths by building excellence from within: Teach good employees to write better and watch them rise through the ranks. This strengthens your organization, your community, and your employees’ families.

Not all employees can become great writers, but most can learn to write better than they do at present. Some people have the math gene, some have the language gene, and some are great with their hands. A lucky few have all three abilities. For the rest of us, our writing ability reflects the amount we read as pre-teenagers and how willing we currently are to practice. While some individuals may never recognize a complete sentence, nearly everyone can apply some common sense rules to write more effectively.

Clients are best served when they are treated with respect, which means they can read and understand what is written to them. Our job as writers is to become familiar with our clients’ needs, so we can make it easy for our message to get through. The Learning Curve covers the full circle of communication issues: analyzing the audience, clarifying purpose, and using the right level of vocabulary and formality in any written message.

My Approach

• Clients love coming to my classes, and they often ask at the end of the training, “What other classes do you offer?” The feedback I hear again and again is that I make English, which is normally a dry, confusing topic, come alive.
• All clients are encouraged to bring questions and examples of real-life writing problems from their daily work. I relish the opportunity to respond to thorny questions about English whenever someone brings one up.
• I pinpoint the gaps in a learner’s understanding of English and provide adequate explanation and practice on the spot. My years of experience teaching every aspect of writing, grammar, and language acquisition make it possible to determine the root of the student’s problem, de-mystify it, and make it understandable. I do this by using every day language, not grammar-speak, in a safe, light-hearted environment where each learner feels secure enough to risk asking those long unanswered questions.

Why The Learning Curve

Theory is fine, but practice makes perfect. Although beautiful materials and sophisticated explanations are intellectually stimulating, it takes a master instructor to recognize what a student is missing and supply it on the fly. The Learning Curve focuses on the nuts and bolts of everyday writing tasks, not theory, so learners approach writing tasks with confidence.

I am flexible in meeting your specific needs. The culture and vocabulary for each organization is unique. Although my programs cover writing skills from filling out emergency forms to report writing, all materials can be customized to reflect your particular requirements.

My clients keep me coming back for more (and new) classes. As new needs arise, I develop new classes to address them. New hires and the newly promoted are encouraged to upgrade their writing skills as a basic competency and for supervisory duties. The Learning Curve has been a partner in my clients’ employee development programs for over ten years.

The Bottom Line

I achieve results. I design my projects to produce sustainable results with the least amount of struggle for your organization, and I believe in transferring skills that stick. Those clients who request a pre- and post test with training see improvements averaging 15 percent. Even better, supervisors give feedback such as, “Your e-mails are 100% better... Way to go....”

Now that you have a better idea about the results you can expect and my approach and philosophy of working with clients, visit My Services to learn about the specific services and programs I offer.