This course is about the grammar of standard English, the language of print, education, business and the professions. We’ll touch on the way knowledge of grammar can help you write clearly, but this course is about grammar rather than plain English.
Our approach is traditional, so we’ll look at the words we use and how we make sentences. We’ll discuss some of the ideas modern grammarians use, but the traditional method is still the best way to start.
Our approach is also systematic, because you need all the pieces of the jigsaw to complete the picture. You’ll be able to revise what you know, and fill in the gaps. And, you’ll find the course book a useful resource to keep.
The course is very intense – it’s not for the faint-hearted. But there will be plenty of time to practise clause analysis, and to discuss problems and some of the changes in standard English going on at the moment.
The course will cover
- Basic grammatical ideas - number, person, inflection, agreement
- Parts of speech - summary
- Nouns - proper, common, concrete, abstract, countable, uncountable, collective, compound
- Verbs - conjugation, tense, aspect, finite, infinite, formation, transitive, intransitive, mood, voice
- Clauses - subject, predicate, object, complement
- Conjunctions - co-ordinating, subordinating
- Subordinate clauses
- Pronouns - personal, possessive, relative, demonstrative, antecedent
- Relative clauses - defining, commenting
- Phrases - adverbial, adjectival, participial
- Adjectives - comparison, possessive
- Adverbs - comparison, particles
- Building sentences - simple, compound, complex
- Punctuation - full stops, question and exclamation marks, commas, colons, semicolons, inverted commas, apostrophes, brackets, dashes, hyphens
- Layout and presentation - paragraphs, lists, headings, emphasis, alignment, justification, fonts, print size
The course timings are:
Start 9.30am
Coffee 11am
Lunch 12.30pm to 1.30pm
Coffee 3pm
Finish 4.30pm
If you have any questions about this course, or if you want to make a booking, please phone Terri on 01663 744409 or email inhousetraining@plainenglish.co.uk.
You may also be interested in our more basic Grammarcheck course.
