Skills students are expected to have when they enter ESL 216A:

Entry Skills - Students should be able to…

Produce basic sentence patterns (subject-verb-object: I ate the pizza, subject-verb prepositional phrase: She walks around the lake, subject-verb-object-prepositional phrase: They got a card for his birthday, subject-verb-adverb: He drives too fast.)
Use simple present (She studies), present continuous (He is studying), simple past (We studied), future (I'm going to study later), and past progressive (You were studying Chemistry last year) tenses
Use prepositional phrases and direct objects. (He plays what? soccer. direct object. He plays where? at school. prepositional phrase)
Produce sentences using and, but, or, because, when (I cook, and he cleans up. I cook when I'm hungry. I cook, or we go out. I cook because I'm better at it.)
Understand grammar terms, such as the names of the parts of speech and names of the verb tenses
Use adjectives and adverbs in comparative and superlative forms. (big, bigger, biggest slowly, more slowly, the most slowly)
Use the modals: can /be able to / could /know how to; may /might. (He can swim. We might go to your party.)
Understand and use subject, object, and possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives correctly. I tell her about my grammar class.