Grammar Essentials

Hours: 24 / Access Length: 180 Days / Delivery: Online, Self-Paced
Retail Price: $139.95

Course Overview:

In this course, we will learn how words work alone and together in predictable ways to express meaning. We will explore how subjects and verbs create clauses and join other structures to form sentences and how knowing the patterns of English can help writers avoid and correct common errors. We will learn how punctuation marks act as a written code to aid understanding and how paragraphs and essays present ideas and evidence on a larger scale and in a variety of ways through the process of composition. To reinforce these concepts, this course focuses less on “rules” and more on the skills and structures that successful writers use to communicate.

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Identify commonly confused words.
• Identify the eight parts of speech.
• Demonstrate the appropriate use of contractions and possessives. 
• Demonstrate the appropriate use of English grammar including adverbs, adjectives, periods, question marks, exclamation points, semicolons, and commas. 
• Write complete sentences, avoiding fragments and run-ons. 
• Write sentences with appropriate subject-verb agreement and sentence structure.

Course Outline:

Lesson 1: Word Use

In this lesson, we will learn how words work alone and together in predictable ways to express meaning. To accomplish this, we will look at commonly confused words, how to consult a dictionary and the eight parts of speech.

Lesson 2: Sentence Structure

In this lesson, we will learn how sentences are built and how words combine to form clauses and phrases. We will explore the formation of complete sentences, including avoiding run-ons and fragments. The use of regular and irregular verbs will also be reviewed.

Lesson 3: Punctuation

In this lesson, we will learn how punctuation is a code that works with the words and sentence structure we've learned about in lessons 1 and 2 to clarify meaning. Here we will focus on commas, periods, exclamation points, and all common punctuation.

Lesson 4: Writing

In this lesson, we will learn paragraphs and essays come together from a combination of sentences, in the same way that sentences come together as combinations of words and punctuation. We will look at the structure of writing, and how paragraphs are formed. We will also explore writing styles and organizing writing.

All necessary materials are included.

System Requirements:

Internet Connectivity Requirements:

• Cable, Fiber, DSL, or LEO Satellite (i.e. Starlink) internet with speeds of at least 10mb/sec download and 5mb/sec upload are recommended for the best experience.

NOTE: While cellular hotspots may allow access to our courses, users may experience connectivity issues by trying to access our learning management system.  This is due to the potential high download and upload latency of cellular connections.   Therefore, it is not recommended that students use a cellular hotspot as their primary way of accessing their courses.

Hardware Requirements:

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 4 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher.  1920x1080 resolution is recommended for the best experience.
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone for Webinar or Live Online sessions.

Operating System Requirements:

• Windows 7 or higher.
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions
  

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

Web Browser Requirements:

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

Basic Software Requirements (These are recommendations of software to use):

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is described in the above course outline.