Topic outline

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    • Time: 14 hours
    • Free Certificate
    • CEFR Level B2
    Learning a new language requires you to pull together a variety of concepts and topics. By connecting your language skills, you are better able to explain yourself and write about your ideas. This course presents Standard American English grammar, vocabulary, and reading skills that work together to culminate in a complete essay. 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.

  • How Good Is Your English?

    Before you start this course, assess how well you understand what you read in English. You may attempt this activity again after you have completed this course to see if your comprehension has improved.

  • Unit 1: Language Skills

    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.

    • 1.1 Sentence Agreement – Number, Person, and Case

      We start Unit 1 with a review of three grammatical features. Sometimes, making subjects and their verbs or nouns and their antecedents agree in English can seem difficult, so this review will provide a basic understanding of how this agreement happens. These materials include information about grammar features to keep in mind for subject-verb agreement. After you read the explanations and watch the videos to learn about verbs, you will have a chance to test your understanding by completing practice activities.

    • 1.2 Tense Consistency

      In this part of Unit 1, we look at how we use verb tense to maintain sentence agreement. Using a consistent verb tense means using the same tense for verbs in a sentence or paragraph. When writing or editing, be sure to keep using the same tense and not change it unless you have a strong reason to do so. These materials include information about maintaining verb consistency when writing sentences and paragraphs. After you read the explanations and watch the videos to learn about tense consistency, you will have a chance to test your understanding by completing practice activities.

    • Unit 1 Review

      You have learned about important sentence agreement guidelines to write clear sentences in English. This is a lot to take in, for sure! This section will help you review what you learned in Unit 1.

    • Unit 1 Assessment

  • Unit 2: Reading to Comprehend

    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.

    • 2.1 Reading Between the Lines

      These materials include reviewing reading skills used to approach non-fiction and fiction texts. After reading the lessons, you will be able to test your understanding by completing different practice activities.

    • Unit 2 Review

      You have learned more about reading strategies to help you become a better reader. You have also learned about making inferences and distinguishing facts and opinions. This section will help you review what you have learned in Unit 2.

    • Unit 2 Assessment

  • Unit 3: Reading to Improve

    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.

  • Unit 4: Reading to Write

    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.

    • 4.1: Essay Basics

      Unit 4 combines the lessons in units 1, 2, and 3. In this unit, you'll read short articles and see how using specific vocabulary plays a role in sharing our opinions and distinguishing them from facts. Then, you'll write an opinion essay and share it in the class discussion forum.

    • 4.2 Putting It All Together

      You have learned about some writing strategies that can help you develop clear essays in English. This section will help you review what you have learned in Unit 4.

    • Unit 4 Assessment

  • Course Feedback Survey

    Please take a few minutes to give us feedback about this course. We appreciate your feedback, whether you completed the whole course or even just a few resources. Your feedback will help us make our courses better, and we use your feedback each time we make updates to our courses.

    If you come across any urgent problems, email contact@saylor.org.

  • Certificate Final Exam

    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.