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Continue reading →: “Showing” and “Telling” in Narratives Through WIDA Language FeaturesWe are having a fantastic time in our summer book study. There are about 70 participants from 6 continents. I lost track of counting countries, it’s easier to count continents. Two theoretical chapters are out of the way – next week is the real fun begins. If you hurry, we…
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Continue reading →: Gamifying Alphabet LearningAlphabet Learning Doesn’t Have to Be Boring: Gamifying the Ukrainian Alphabet By Dr. Ruslana Westerlund (with Nicky Westerlund) I’ve been writing all about English in my blogs, and most of my work focused on the upper levels of the language system: Discourse and down. Well, today I’m changing things up…
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Continue reading →: The Role of Language in Health and Physical EducationBy Dr. Ruslana Westerlund I recently delivered training for instructional leaders from various learning areas – from environmental science to early years to math and science, and yes, health and physical education (HPE). (In the following weeks, I will be training social studies, literacy, art & music instructional leaders). Being…
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Continue reading →: A New Chapter: Making Language Visible Goes Full-TimeDear readers, Big news: Making Language Visible is growing. I’m excited to share that I’ve officially launched Westerlund Consulting, LLC as a full-time endeavor. What began as a space to think, write, and share ideas about language and learning back in 2013 has evolved into a dedicated consulting practice focused…
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Continue reading →: How Causality Unfolds Across Historical Texts: The Domino EffectBy Dr. Ruslana Westerlund I have previously written on how causal language is not always expressed through because and so in this blog. Today, I’m going to take you to historical texts to illustrate something that needs to be taught explicit to our students: how cause and effect chains are…
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Continue reading →: Demystifying “Informational” TextsBy Dr. Ruslana Westerlund Walk into almost any classroom and you will hear teachers say something like: “Today we’re working on informational writing.” Or, prominent literacy bloggers write about the importance of teaching “text structure”, e.g., informational writing is different from narrative. In this blog, I explore the nuances of…
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Continue reading →: Language is not a ScaffoldEver since I read Halliday, I realized how we not only misunderstood but entirely missed the role of language in education. We have reduced language to “language supports” or “language scaffolds”. We have reduced language as a meaning making resource to language as an inventory of structures leading to very…
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Continue reading →: The Topic Sentence MythI recently had a conversation with a teacher about teaching paragraph structure in an argument (persuasive essay). She said, so why can’t we call the first sentence a topic sentence and the final sentence a concluding sentence? That conversation inspired this blog. The answer is simple: the sentences that open…
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Continue reading →: Dr. Westerlund’s Blog Organized by CategoriesSomeone has just reached out and asked me for a progression of learning with a Functional Approach. In response, I have grouped my resources by different language features, starting with noun groups because that seems like an entry point. However, you could start with cohesive devices or causal verbs or…
Hello,
I’m Ruslana
Proud immigrant woman business owner of Making Language Visible @Westerlund Consulting. I consult internationally on all things related to equipping all teachers with a pedagogically useful model of language. Book me at westerlundconsulting.com
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