Course Overview

Welcome to Tell Your Story in English!  

Course Overview This course is designed for English language learners who are teenagers or young adults. You can improve your English skills by reading and writing stories, and with grammar and vocabulary lessons. You can also make international friends.

The course is four weeks long. During the course, you will write a short story in English. It can be a story from your life, or something you imagine. The activities you do each week will help you write a better story. 
What you need to know before the course We designed the course for high beginner to intermediate learners of English.

That means you should be able to read these sentences, and write a paragraph of your own. You should also know about parts of speech and past tense verbs. It's okay if you have never written a story in English before.

There is a course readiness quiz where you can check your English level and see if you have the skills needed for this class. 
Activities and time commitment Every week, you will do many different activities. The activities will help you write your story in English. 
  • Time commitment – We recommend that you spend about 4 hours a week on this course. You can also spend more or less time. 
  • Reading – When you read other people's stories, it can give you ideas for your own story, and it helps you learn vocabulary and grammar. 
  • Vocabulary – We will study words that are useful for stories, and vocabulary learning skills. 
  • Grammar – The most important grammar areas for story writers are past tense and sentence structure. We will learn about these two areas every week. 
  • Writing – In Week 1 you will think about a topic and title for your story. In Week 2, you will write a story outline. In Weeks 3 and 4, you will write drafts of your story. More information about the story project is below. 
Earning badges or a certificate You can earn a badge for each week of the course by completing all required activities. Click "Modules" to see all of the activities. A green check mark will appear in "Modules" each time you complete an activity.

You must complete all required activities, including scoring 100% on the quizzes, to earn a badge. You can take the quizzes more than once if you need to. 

When you have earned your badges from all four modules, you can receive a pdf course certificate via email. The certificate recognizes your effort in and completion of the course, but there is no university credit for this course. 
Story Project You will work on your story throughout this course. Here is an outline of the story tasks. You can also download an assignment sheet: Download TYS-Story-Assignment.pdf
  • Week 1 – Topic and title of your story. You can write about something that happened to you or someone you know, or you can write a fiction story. It is your choice.
  • Week 2 – Story outline. After learning about stories in Week 1, you will plan your own story. 
  • Week 3 – First draft of your story. You will use your outline from Week 2 to write the whole story. Your story will be at least 300 words long. You will also make a glossary of the more advanced words in your story. 
  • Week 4 – Final draft of your story. You will rewrite and improve your story. Then you will post the final draft. Congratulations – you have written a story in English!
Tips for MOOC success! An open online course is different from a regular course in many ways. 

  • The more time and effort you spend, the more you will learn.
  • If you stay on the weekly schedule, you will have more interaction and better learning. If you post early in the week, you are likely to get more feedback.
  • Giving feedback to others helps you learn. Don't be shy, but do be polite and respectful!
  • Instructors cannot give feedback to thousands of learners in this course, so collaborate with other course participants to take control of your learning.