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Describing language
Describing language

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

Introduction and guidance

This free badged course, Describing language, lasts 24 hours and is comprised of eight weeks. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week there is no problem with pushing on to complete a further week. The eight weeks are linked to ensure a logical flow through the course. They are:

  1. Making words
  2. Nouns: naming things, places, people and ideas
  3. Verbs 1: how we describe what we do
  4. Verbs 2: how verbs work together
  5. Adjectives: adding more information
  6. All the bits in between
  7. Putting it all together
  8. Language in the real world.

Each week should take you around 3 hours. There are a number of activities throughout the course where you are asked to note down your response. A text box is provided for you to do this, however if you would prefer to record your answers in another way that is fine.

At the end of each week there is also a quiz to help you check your understanding. And, if you want to receive a formal statement of participation, at the end of Weeks 4 and 8 there is a quiz which you need to pass.

After completing this course, you should be able to:

  • identify different types of words including nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions and prepositions
  • understand how words pattern together in regular structures
  • recognise different types of sentences
  • describe how different structures can convey different meanings.

Moving around the course

In the ‘Summary’ at the end of each week, you will find a link to the next week. If at any time you want to return to the start of the course, click on ‘Full course description’. From here you can navigate to any part of the course.

It’s also good practice, if you access a link from within a course page (including links to the quizzes), to open it in a new window or tab. That way you can easily return to where you’ve come from without having to use the back button on your browser.

The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.