Our plain English training courses can be held at your offices at a time to suit you. We can also tailor the course content to cover any specific needs that you might have.
The one-day training course
This course follows the same format as the one-day open course. It covers the following points during the morning session:
- the reasons for plain English
- understanding the different target groups (disabled people, black and minority ethnic people, young and older people)
- basic problems - long words, long sentences, confused meaning
- basic grammar
- spoken and written English
The first part of the afternoon session brings all these into play with an exercise designed to build up editing skills using Robert Gunning's FOG Index. This is a popular part of the course and helps demonstrate how long words, long and passive sentences and surplus information can have an impact on the readability of a passage.
The second part of the afternoon session also answers some common questions: how to use a colon, when to use capital letters, use of the apostrophe and so on.
Costs are £600 plus VAT a day for up to 12 people. The price for each additional delegate is £35 up to a maximum of 18 people.
The two-day training course
The two-day in-house course is designed to help bring your organisation's written communications up to Gold Star standards. The first day will cover the same topics as the one-day course, but with greater emphasis on documents that delegates have brought with them.
The second day will concentrate on bringing these documents up to Gold Star standards. It will start with a group review of the various documents brought to the course. Individuals will then work on these using techniques learned on the first day.
These documents will be assessed for a complimentary Gold Star Award after the course.
The half-day training course
We also run a three hour, half-day letter writing course. This can be run at any time of day to suit you.
