FUNDAMENTAL ENGLISH

Schedule of Lessons



This series of lessons is designed to work along with the book The Least You Should Know About English.  There will be some parts of the book that you will not need to go into unless you feel the need yourself.  I have based the lessons below on what stood out in your preliminary tests as needing work.  Feel free, though, to do any of the other chapters and lessons in the text.  It is also important that you ask questions about anything you do not completely understand.  It is also very important to incorporate what you will be learning into your everyday language, both spoken and written.  We tend to write the way we speak in casual conversation, and this leads to a perpetuation of errors.

Below is a schedule of lessons.  Changes may be made to it as needed by either the student or the teacher.


I.  Spelling

    A. Commonly Confused Words
    B. Contractions
    C. Possessives


II.  Sentence Structure

    A. Finding Subjects and Verbs
    B. Correcting Run-On Sentences
    C. Correcting Fragments
    D. Using Standard English Verbs
    E. Subject - Verb - Pronoun Agreement
    F. Using the Right Pronouns
    G. Parrallel Construction
    H. Shifts in Time and Person


III.  Punctuation and Capital Letters

    A. Periods, End Punctuation, etc.
    B. Commas, First 3 Rules
    C. Commas, Second 3 Rules
    D. Quotation Marks
    E. Capital Letters
 IV.  Journal Writing

    Throughout the first part of the textbook, after most of the sets of exercises, there will be Journal Writing assignments. These should be done according to instuctions.  They may seem like busy work, but using what you learn is a major help in retaining the information.

    The journal entries should be e-mailed to me on a weekly basis, preferably each Friday.  You may do more than one a week if you wish.  Be sure to indicate which journal writing assignment you are sending.

V.  Tests

    The progress tests on pages 43 and 112 are important to take to help see where there are still problem areas.  The answers are in the back of the book; use them only to check your work after you have taken the tests.  The final comprehensive test is on page 200.

    Check your answers and e-mail the test scores to me.  Please contact me if you have any questions.



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