Coursera

Questions, Present Progressive and Future Tenses (Coursera)

Offered by University of California, Irvine,

In this course, “Questions, Present Progressive and Future Tenses,” you will learn about question words in English and how to form questions in the simple present. Then you will learn how to form the present progressive to express ideas about things that are happening right now. You will look at the differences between the simple present and present progressive. Finally, you will learn how to use “to be going to” and the present progressive to talk about the future and how to use “can” to talk about ability.

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Course 2 of 3 in the Learn English: Beginning Grammar Specialization

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Information Questions Simple Present
We will start this week with question words. You will learn how to ask information questions in the simple present. Information questions are questions where the answer is not "yes" or "no." The answer is some information. For example, “Where are you?” is an information question because the answer is not “yes.” It is, “I’m at school.”

WEEK 2
Count/Noncount Nouns & Present Progressive
This week, you will learn more about nouns: count nouns and non-count nouns. This will help you ask questions like “How many brothers do you have?” and “How much time do you need?” Then we will look at the present progressive. This is another verb tense in English. The present progressive tells about things that are happening now. You will learn about how to form it and also how to make the negative.

WEEK 3
Present Progressive Question & Signal Words
This week is all about asking questions with the present progressive. You will learn how to ask yes/no questions and information questions. Then we will compare simple present and present progressive so you can see when to use each. You will learn about signal words and the difference between sentences like “I speak English” and “I am speaking English.”

WEEK 4
Future Forms & Can
Now that you know how to form the present progressive, this week you will see how we use “be going to” and the present progressive to talk about the future. You will also learn how to use “can” to talk about what you can and can’t do.

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