ESL003: Upper-Intermediate English as a Second Language

In Unit 1, you will learn how sentences become clearer when tenses agree. You'll practice recognizing tense to make your writing more coherent. Unit 2 builds your vocabulary by exploring synonyms and antonyms. In Unit 3, you will develop stronger reading skills when you practice making inferences and explaining your thoughts on what you've read. Unit 4 brings all these topics together as you write a short, cohesive essay about an article. By the end of this course, you will be able to describe your opinions about the things you read. This course is designed to help you use your new skills to communicate your ideas in a clear, thoughtful manner.

First, read the course syllabus. Then, enroll in the course by clicking "Enroll me". Click Unit 1 to read its introduction and learning outcomes. You will then see the learning materials and instructions on how to use them.

Unit 1 introduces you to sentence agreement and tense consistency. Both of these concepts relate to the correct use of verbs to improve clarity of expression. In English, it is important that subjects match their verbs in every sentence. It is also important that the time of verbs, referred to as the verb's tense, stays consistent in a sentence or paragraph. For example, readers would be confused if a sentence mentioned one bird "walked" but later said "birds" or if that same bird "walked" while also "is walking". Clear writing also relies on pronouns correctly referring to their noun antecedents. In this unit, you'll learn how to match subjects with their verbs and pronouns to their nouns and use verb tense consistently in your sentences or paragraphs to help the reader follow along easily. Finally, you'll practice recognizing subject-verb, pronoun-antecedent agreement, and tense consistency errors in order to correct them.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 5 hours.

Unit 2 reviews reading skills discussed in ESL002, focusing on making inferences and evaluative reading. Distinguishing fact from opinion and using your prior knowledge as you read will help you better comprehend the texts you read. In this unit, you will practice these skills to improve your comprehension of short articles in English.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 3 hours.

In ESL002, we learned about using a thesaurus to learn synonyms and antonyms. We also learned about the importance of matching the meaning of new words to the context in which they're used. This unit in ESL003 will review some vocabulary strategies that help you best use all the new words you have learned. Be sure to complete the practice activities to learn how to continue to develop these skills.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 2 hours.

This unit pulls together everything you learned in the previous units. In this unit, you will bring together sentence agreement, facts, and word choice to write and share a short expository essay.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 4 hours.

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Take this exam if you want to earn a free Course Completion Certificate.

To receive a free Course Completion Certificate, you will need to earn a grade of 70% or higher on this final exam. Your grade for the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you can take it again as many times as you want, with a 7-day waiting period between each attempt.

Once you pass this final exam, you will be awarded a free Course Completion Certificate.