ESL classes are ideal for people who wish to improve their English skills for school, business, or personal interactions. When studying English, learning grammar is a necessity, but you may benefit from improving your speaking skills before mastering grammar rules. After all, everyone learns to speak their native language before they learn grammar! Once you are somewhat proficient in spoken English, you can further improve your verbal skills by focusing on these basics of grammar:

Subjects

The subject of a sentence is who or what you are talking about. For example, in the sentence “I am very sleepy,” “I” is the subject. In some languages, the subject doesn’t always need to be stated and is understood through context, but English requires a subject in every sentence. If you don’t use a subject, it’s unlikely that people will understand what you’re saying.

Verbs

A verb is an action, an occurrence, or a state of being. Verbs are essential to spoken English. Unfortunately, they can be a bit tricky to master because so many common English verbs are irregular, including “buy,” “eat,” “make,” “read,” and “see.”

Articles

“A,” “an,” and “the” are articles, and all are used to modify nouns. “A/an” is an indefinite article and “the” is a definite article. In other words, “the” describes a specific noun. If you say, “I want to read the book,” you have a specific book in mind. “I want to read a book,” on the other hand, means you have a desire to read any book. Names of languages, sports, people, and academic subjects are nouns that should not be paired with articles.

Tenses

Tenses refer to time – past, present and future. They can tell you when an action occurred, occurs or is occurring. Tenses can often be difficult to grasp at first.

At ASC English, we provide intensive ESL courses designed to help students master the English language in all forms, and we accommodate learners at any level of proficiency. ASC offers a wide range of English classes in Boston, covering topics like grammar, reading, writing, listening, speaking, pronunciation, and real-world applications. Call us at (617) 860-3212 for more information.