Recent workplace studies have shown that a typical professional in a scientific or technical field spends more than half of his/her time communicating technical information to a variety of audiences for different purposes. Strong communication skills are highly valued by employers, and non-native speakers of English entering such professions quickly recognize the need to improve their skills in technical writing or visual communication. Especially in rapidly growing economies with a large number of professionals from different cultures, such as Qatar’s, the need to have a professional workforce which can communicate well is pressing. This project proposes the design and implementation of a just-in-time, online self-learning tutorial that teaches the basic principles of technical writing and visual communication. Using a rhetorical approach, we will not simply present a set of general principles, but rather explain how such principles can be used in different contexts to promote effective communication. In addition, we will use these tutorials to understand the effect of second language issues on professional communication through scaffolding activities and a methodology which aligns learning objectives to these activities. Finally, we will disseminate these tutorials to major partnering companies in Qatar via the technological infrastructure provided by Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative.