I’m getting more involved with teaching english seriously the longer i stay in Taiwan and the newest problem which has come up is explicitly teaching grammar to students.
As a native speaking english teacher, what’s a good book for us, which:
-gives an overview of the most important and useful english grammar for communication
-also can serve as a reference
-is designed for native speakers, not for people learning the language
I’ve just bought Practical English Usage, but I was just wondering if there are other suggestions. I found this bookjust off a google search and it seems promising.
I quite liked ‘Eats, Shoots, and Leaves’ as a quick tongue-in-cheek guide to punctuation usage. I can now use a semicolon correctly!
(It turns out semicolons are actually really useful, too.)
It’s not a straight-up reference guide but it’s very, very informative, while somehow managing to be really fun at the same time.
Best way to improve your English is to read more though. Neil Gaiman’s a good place to start if you don’t like novels; his are modern and twisted enough to keep you entertained.
I meant a book directed towards native speaking teachers, but after looking through the Amazon reviews, it looks like teachers appreciate the book a lot too. Thanks for the suggestion! I actually think i saw this at Cave’s today when i was picking up PEU.
Well, in my opinion Practical English Usage is by far the best.
You could also look at Parrot (I think) Grammar for English Language Teachers and one of my other favorites, Scott Thornbury’s About Language.
[quote=“heimuoshu”]Well, in my opinion Practical English Usage is by far the best.
You could also look at Parrot (I think) Grammar for English Language Teachers and one of my other favorites, Scott Thornbury’s About Language.[/quote]
Totally agree.The Parrot and Thornbury books got me through my DELTA.
Find a good book to show you XBar theory and transformation rules. You’ll look back on grammarians’ texts like the writers were numerologists.
I give students a guide, but the title escapes me. It has no exercises in it. It is only a reference guide to the fundamentals. I tell them to keep it for reference, but stuff it with my own handouts to organize areas where the authors f-up.
[quote=“Dougster”][quote=“heimuoshu”]Well, in my opinion Practical English Usage is by far the best.
You could also look at Parrot (I think) Grammar for English Language Teachers and one of my other favorites, Scott Thornbury’s About Language.[/quote]
Totally agree.The Parrot and Thornbury books got me through my DELTA.[/quote]
Makes two of us
I used those two and “A-Z of ELt” also by Thornbury quite a lot.
I do think though that the Swan book is a better resource for checking up on things before you teach. The ohter’s are very good for reflection and ensuring that you actually have a grasp on things.
