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Correcting Oral and Written Errors
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| Price: |
$99.00 |
| Business Focus: |
Writing & Publishing |
| Instructor: |
Romana Hillebrand |
| Course Code: |
owe |
| Delivery Method: |
Instructor-led Online Course |
| Frequently Asked Questions |
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| Course Overview: |
Have you ever wondered why so many companies announce their bargains are available everyday while a correct few report their prices are low every day? Have you heard celebrities claim that they feel badly about some situation while others say that they feel bad? This course will not only help you to understand common usage errors such as these but also will leave you feeling very secure about your own use of English.
If you’ve ever had a moment of complete frustration over word choice, punctuation, spelling, or pronunciation, this is the course for you. Although many people no longer worry about spelling because they have a computer spell-check, I like to warn that this can create what I call computer malapropism--the habit of ridiculously misusing words. These misused words, similar in some aspect but never in meaning, can leave your reader confused or laughing. You certainly must agree that this is to be avoided at all cost. If you are aware of the criticisms expressed by officials from companies who complain that their employees are neither good writers nor good speakers, you must be eager to study correct forms. I promise that if you complete this course you will gain confidence and correctness in your writing and speaking.
More than twenty-five years ago, research affirmed the ineffectiveness of formal grammar lessons. As a result, many primary and secondary teachers set aside formal grammar lessons. The seeming lack of connection between learning and lessons, however, does not justify completely eliminating all language instruction, especially now that the College Entrance Examination Board is including multiple-choice grammar questions and an essay in the new SAT. This course not only prepares students who anticipate taking the SAT but also provides teachers with examples and explanations that enrich their own use of language and their teaching of language.
Through teaching and speaking engagements, I have come to realize that people do care about how they speak and write. Over the years, I have collected a variety of common errors in usage, spelling, pronunciation, and punctuation. In this course, I will share these errors with you to help you avoid common mistakes.
Having completed the course, you will instinctively write and speak with assurance that your word choices, punctuation, spelling, and pronunciation are, indeed, correct.
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| Instructor Biography: |
| Romana Hillebrand’s teaching career began over thirty years ago as a secondary English teacher before moving to the university level twelve years ago to teach composition courses. Over the years, she has had articles on the teaching of writing published in The English Journal and The Quarterly, has presented at several College Composition and Communication Conferences in various states, and has participated in the National Writing Project. Currently on a prestigious writing project’s executive board, she has presented at teacher conferences and workshops, as well as at student conferences. In addition to teaching and project activities, she edits monthly publications for assorted community groups, has edited novel drafts for beginning authors, and written reviews for various publications. This past year, as a guest speaker for two authors’ organizations she presented lessons on common language errors. Members’ eagerness to know correct usage has made her eager to share with others. |
| Course Syllabus: |
| Lesson 1 Syllabus |
Correct Choices and Correct Rejections |
| Lesson 2 Syllabus |
Mastery of Misspelled and Mispronounced Mistakes |
| Lesson 2 Objective |
Learn to identify confused words, redundant phrases, and nonstandard terms. |
| Lesson 3 Syllabus |
Eliminating Embarrassing Errors |
| Lesson 3 Objective |
Become familiar with misspelled and mispronounced words, and identify and correct a new set of confused words. |
| Lesson 4 Syllabus |
To Be or Not To Be: That Is the Mood |
| Lesson 4 Objective |
Correct redundancies and nonstandard terms, and become familiar with an additional set of confused word choices. |
| Lesson 5 Syllabus |
Successive Successes in Spelling and Speaking |
| Lesson 5 Objective |
Learn to employ subjunctive mood, to understand the similar but different spellings and purposes of frequently confused words, and to spell plural word forms correctly. |
| Lesson 6 Syllabus |
Irregularities Made Regular |
| Lesson 6 Objective |
Learn to spell words with double consonants correctly, to use phrases correctly that are often misused, and to add a new set of confused word choices to the growing collection of correct choices. |
| Lesson 7 Syllabus |
Perfecting Verbs and Words |
| Lesson 7 Objective |
Use proper forms of irregular verbs, practice spelling commonly misspelled words, and make correct word choices. |
| Lesson 8 Syllabus |
Controlling Commas and Capitals |
| Lesson 8 Objective |
Become familiar with the use of past, present, and future perfect tenses, with the correct pronunciation of words whose vowels are often mispronounced, and with the correct spelling of words that require spacing between syllables or segments. |
| Lesson 9 Syllabus |
Punctuation Power |
| Lesson 9 Objective |
Understand the correct use of the comma, learn phrases that are often misused, and recognize words that require capital letters. |
| Lesson 10 Syllabus |
Paradigms of Punctuation, Pronouns, and Patchy Phrases |
| Lesson 10 Objective |
Learn to use a colon and semicolon correctly, and to add yet another set of confused word choices to the ever-growing collection. |
| Lesson 11 Syllabus |
Amalgam of Correlatives, Spellings, and Syntax |
| Lesson 11 Objective |
Learn to use the dash, the apostrophe, and the hyphen correctly, to use pronoun cases correctly, and to avoid using phrases that are awkwardly informal. |
| Lesson 12 Syllabus |
Accomplishments Achieved with Attained Accuracy |
| Lesson 12 Objective |
Identify correlatives and proper syntax to use correctly in speaking and writing, and identify the correct spelling of words with easily mistaken vowels. |
