This course offers detailed training in English grammar. Please check our course dates for the next available course.

Please phone 01663 744409 or e-mail terri.schabel@plainenglish.co.uk for more details.

Our approach is traditional because if you were taught grammar in school, it was probably the traditional kind. The course should help you revise some familiar ideas and fill in the gaps in your knowledge.

Most of us write competently without being aware of the rules we are following. But sometimes we come across grammatical problems or can't see how to write clearly and concisely. Knowing how words fit together in sentences can help us write and edit other people's work, with more confidence.

We will look at the grammar of standard English, which is the language of business, government, education and the professions. Some of us lack confidence because we are not sure of the correct grammar.

Like any other technical subject, grammar has its own jargon which you have to learn how to use. But we always explain it clearly when we introduce it.

We will show you how to use punctuation to structure your sentences and make their meaning clearer, and how to punctuate lists.

The aim of the course is to give you a sound working knowledge of grammar, with the emphasis on clear and concise writing using plain-English principles.

The course will cover the following.

• 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

If you are interested in this course, please e-mail terri.schabel@plainenglish.co.uk with your postal address or fax number. You may also be interested in our more basic Grammarcheck course.