While vocabulary is the concern of beginning students of English as a second language (ESL) and essays are the focus of advanced students, syntax is the domain of the intermediate course, with an emphasis on sentence combining. One method divides the course into four segments: (1) using, varying, and rearranging connectors; (2) ordering thoughts in English; (3) choosing and varying styles; and (4) eliminating faulty constructions. The approach covers small amounts of new information very slowly and thoroughly. The text used is a common one, but most texts with adequate sentence sets for combining would be appropriate, and they need not be designed for ESL. Vocabulary, punctuation, and grammar are handled as supplementary to the central issue of sentence combining, and the jargon presented to students is limited to what is necessary for the task. At least one writing assignment is required each week, especially necessary for students who will find themselves in college composition classes. These compositions go through several rewriting stages and sessions of peer criticism. (MSE)