The English Language in Modern Fiction

This course has been made for advanced students of English who would like to sharpen their skills with modern fiction. I have chosen one text (Donna Tartt's The Secret History), so I advise students to read a few pages of the book to see if they like the novel. There are 8 sections in the course, and each section focuses on the different grammar and vocabulary that appear in each chapter of the book.  Donna Tartt reads her own story aloud, so students are encouraged to read the story or to listen to the audio book (easy to find either for free), or to do both. Once you have read the first chapter, watch my lectures and complete the quizzes that correspond to that chapter; then, I recommend you retell the story to your speaking partner or teacher, as I believe that retelling stories is the best way to make swift progress with speaking.

By the end of the course, students will have covered tenses, past modals, questions, conditionals, subjunctive, so v such, perfect infinitives, perfect gerunds, inversion, phrases and clauses, adverb collocations, phrasal verbs, articles, correlative conjunctions, prepositions, relative clauses, and many vocabulary topics. I encourage students to ask questions, and I usually respond within 24 hours.