The Sentence: Module Overview
1. Introduction
Words do not communicate on their own. A list of words — even a list of perfectly chosen, correctly spelled words — is not language in any meaningful sense. Language begins when words are arranged into sentences. The sentence is the fundamental unit of communication in English, and understanding how sentences work is the single most important step a learner of English can take after mastering the basic word classes.
Module 1 introduced the eight parts of speech — the word classes that make up every sentence in English. Module 2 takes the next step. It asks not what kind of word is this? but how do words combine to make meaning? The answer to that question is the sentence — and this module explores it in full.
2. What This Module Covers
This module contains nine lessons. The early lessons establish the foundations — what a sentence is, what its essential components are, and how those components are structured. The middle lessons examine the different types of sentences English uses and the difference between phrases and clauses. The later lessons address the two most common sentence-level errors in written English, before the module closes with a lesson on how to vary sentence structure for clarity and effect.
| Lesson | Title | Level |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | What Is a Sentence? | 🔵 Beginner |
| 2 | Subjects and Predicates | 🔵 Beginner |
| 3 | Objects and Complements | 🔵 Beginner |
| 4 | Types of Sentences by Structure | 🔵 Beginner |
| 5 | Types of Sentences by Function | 🔵 Beginner |
| 6 | Phrases and Clauses | 🔵 Beginner |
| 7 | Sentence Fragments | 🟢 Elementary |
| 8 | Run-On Sentences and Comma Splices | 🟢 Elementary |
| 9 | Sentence Variety and Style | 🟢 Elementary |
3. How This Module Fits into the Course
Module 1 gave you the vocabulary of grammar — the names and descriptions of the word classes that make up every sentence in English. Module 2 gives you the architecture — the structural principles that determine how those word classes combine into meaningful, grammatically complete sentences.
Every module that follows — from Articles and Determiners in Module 3 through to Integrated Grammar Mastery in Module 12 — assumes a working understanding of sentence structure. The concepts introduced in this module — subject, predicate, clause, phrase, independent clause, dependent clause — appear throughout the rest of the course. A confident grasp of them here makes everything that follows easier to understand and easier to apply.
4. A Note on Level
The module opens at beginner level and moves to elementary by Lessons 7 to 9. The early lessons introduce concepts that are straightforward in principle but fundamental in importance — every learner, regardless of level, benefits from revisiting them with care. The later lessons deal with error correction and stylistic choice, which require a slightly more developed understanding of how English sentences work.
5. Before You Begin
If you have not yet completed Module 1 — The Parts of Speech System — it is strongly recommended that you do so before beginning this module. The lessons here refer frequently to nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions. A working knowledge of those word classes will make the content of this module significantly easier to follow.