Verb Tenses and Passives (Coursera)

Verb Tenses and Passives (Coursera)

This is the first course in the Learn English: Advanced Grammar and Punctuation specialty. In this course, you will review the verb tenses that you learned in beginning English classes and learn about a few tenses you may not know very well. In all, you'll cover all 12 of the English verb tenses and passive verb forms. Most importantly, you'll learn how to blend these tenses, which is what native speakers frequently do. This course is vital to your becoming a more fluent English speaker.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

Please note that the free version of this class gives you access to all of the instructional videos and handouts. The peer feedback and quizzes are only available in the paid version.
Course 1 of 4 in the Learn English: Advanced Grammar and Punctuation Specialization.

Syllabus

Week 1
Simple, Progressive, and Perfect Verb Tenses Review
In the first week of this course, you will get to know your classmates and review the verb tenses of English that you have probably learned before. It's always important to review and make sure your foundation is solid before learning new grammar. Use this week to fill in any gaps you have in your understanding of nine verb tenses of English.

Week 2
Perfect Progressive Tenses
This week, you'll learn about the final three verb tenses in English. Then you will be familiar with all 12 English verb tenses. These will combine the perfect tenses with the progressive tenses. Because you already know those tenses, learning these new ones should be fairly easy.

Week 3
Passives and Perfect Modals
In this week, you'll learn about some more complicated verbs. Passives and perfect modals will take what you already know about verb tenses and add some more layers to it. Studying these will improve your fluency in written and spoken English.

Week 4
Blending Tenses
In the final week of the course, you'll learn about one of the most difficult but necessary aspects of verb tenses. You will learn how to blend or mix them to talk about the past, present, and future naturally. Learning to do this will help you become a more fluent speaker and writer of English.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Lesson | Telephone Language (Coursera) Coursera
Georgia Institute of Technology

Lesson | Telephone Language (Coursera)

This lesson is part of a full course, Speak English Professionally: In Person, Online & On the Phone. Take this lesson to get a short tutorial on the learning objectives covered. To dive deeper into this topic, take the full course. By the end of this lesson, you will be able to identify telephone language through phone dialogues.

Nov 16th 2026
1 Week
Teach English Now! Second Language Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation (Coursera) Coursera
Arizona State University

Teach English Now! Second Language Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation (Coursera)

In this course, you will be introduced to some of the challenges of teaching and learning listening and speaking, such as paralinguistics, performance variables, reduced and regional forms, and differing types of oral discourse. Don't worry--you'll learn what those mean, too! Then you'll learn how to ease the acquisition of listening and speaking for your students. The course also highlights the powerful opportunity to include pronunciation in listening and speaking classes and offers strategies to incorporate pronunciation activities.

Nov 9th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Business English: Planning & Negotiating (Coursera) Coursera
University of Washington

Business English: Planning & Negotiating (Coursera)

In this course, the context is hosting an event and finding an appropriate venue for it. You will learn language and strategies for successful negotiations culminating in a written announcement for an event. Course Learning Objectives: negotiate strategically in formal and informal settings; identify and resolve customer issues after a negotiation has taken place; evaluate and compare services and features of two venues; plan a business event using negotiation skills; write an announcement for a business event after selecting a venue.

Nov 9th 2026
4 Weeks
Children Acquiring Literacy Naturally (Coursera) Coursera
University of California, Santa Cruz

Children Acquiring Literacy Naturally (Coursera)

In this short course you will explore the possibility that children might acquire written language in a way that is similar to how they acquire spoken language—without instruction. You will encounter various aspects of behavioral science and technology that are relevant to this proposition. You will have the opportunity to learn the the perceptual, cognitive, and neurological capacities of children during their first years of life. You will advance your understanding of children and how they learn language. You will also be more attuned to current advances in the technology of human machine interactions, and what these phenomena imply for learning to read at an early age.

Nov 23rd 2026
3 Weeks
Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics (Coursera) Coursera
Leiden University,Meertens Instituut - KNAW

Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics (Coursera)

Everywhere, every day, everybody uses language. There is no human society, no matter how small or how isolated, which does not employ a language that is rich and diverse. This course introduces you to linguistics, featuring interviews with well-known linguists and with speakers of many different languages. Join us to explore the miracles of human language!

Nov 9th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Teach English Now! Foundational Principles (Coursera) Coursera
Arizona State University

Teach English Now! Foundational Principles (Coursera)

Through a series of engaging metaphors and stories, prospective and current EFL/ESL teachers will identify, summarize, and evaluate 7 basic language learning paradigms. Learners will be presented information on such foundational principles as motivation, risk taking, two different modes of learning, and balancing the teacher profession. Learners are also given an understanding of basic techniques founded on those principles, such as teacher talk, looking “ridiculous” in order to lower the affective filter, and networking. With these foundational principles in mind, ESL/EFL teachers will scrutinize common assumptions about language learning by comparing how they stack up to research-based core principles.

Nov 9th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Learn to Speak Korean 1 (Coursera) Coursera
Yonsei University

Learn to Speak Korean 1 (Coursera)

Welcome to Learn to Speak Korean 1! This course is for beginner students who are familiar with the Korean alphabet, Hangeul. Through this course students will learn the skills essential for daily interactions with Koreans while living in Korea. This course consists of six modules, and each module is composed of five units.

Nov 16th 2026
5-12 Weeks
English for Effective Business Writing (Coursera) Coursera
The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology - HKUST

English for Effective Business Writing (Coursera)

This course aims to improve your Business English writing skills by developing your use of vocabulary, grammar, understanding of different business writing genres, and your ability to write professional business documents. Skills learned in this course will be used in the cross-cultural communications course and help prepare you to produce the professional business documents in the Capstone project.

Nov 16th 2026
5-12 Weeks
English for Teaching Purposes (Coursera) Coursera
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

English for Teaching Purposes (Coursera)

Thinking about teaching your university subject in English but it’s not the Language you normally use? Then, English for teaching purposes is the course for you. A course on English and teaching methodology that aims to help university lecturers do their teaching in English, in line with university internationalisation policies. The course structure is the same for all learners and there are opportunities for them to link up with colleagues from universities all over the world who share the same discipline and discourse community, to ask questions and exchange ideas.

Nov 23rd 2026
4 Weeks