A Commonsense Guide to Grammar and Usage is just what its name suggests: a straightforward, student-friendly grammar guide. The text’s modular lessons break down complex grammatical concepts with plain-language explanations, handy tips, and visual examples that show — rather than just tell — students how to recognize, correct, and learn to avoid errors in grammar. With hundreds of exercises in the book and thousands more available online for free at Exercise Central, students get ample practice finding and fixing errors in their writing. The text also includes writing coverage and brief documentation guides for MLA and APA, making it a useful reference for a variety of college courses. Read the preface.

Offers elementary teachers advice and strategies to help them teach, apply, and understand English grammar while still adhering to state and school standards.

The Grammaring Guide to English Grammar is a resource book on the grammar of Standard British English. It is intended for intermediate to advanced students of English as a second or foreign language who have already studied the basic grammar of English. It covers the most important areas of English grammar and concentrates on structures which may cause difficulty at an intermediate level or above. The book starts with a pretest that helps you identify the areas you need to work on. The pretest is followed by eleven chapters, broken down to a number of subchapters that each deal with a specific grammar point. The related explanations are accompanied by real-life sample sentences, timeline diagrams, tables, and quotes. If a similar point or the same point is discussed in a different part of the book, you will find cross-references to that point. Where appropriate, chapters begin with guiding questions and end with revision questions. Most of the chapters are followed by exercises, including multiple choice, sentence transformation, error correction, gap filling and matching exercises, as well as communicative tasks that can be done in language lessons. At the end of the book, there is an appendix which contains a list of the most common irregular verb forms and the most important spelling rules; a list of the quotes that appear in the book; and a glossary that defines grammatical terms frequently used in the explanations. The chapters in this book are not arranged in order of difficulty. This way, the book can be used for quick reference on specific points of interest, as well as for systematic study, either as a self-study grammar book or as additional material in an ESL/EFL course. No matter which way you use the book, it is recommended that you follow the cross-references, which will lead you to further information on a given item. The exercises, which come with suggested answers, are best done using pen and paper. These exercises will not only help you to practise grammar but also to tie grammatical forms to real-world meaning.

Innovations and Challenges in Grammar traces the history of common understandings of what grammar is and where it came from to demonstrate how ‘rules’ are anything but fixed and immutable. In doing so, it deconstructs the notion of ‘correctness’ to show how grammar changes over time thereby exposing the social and historical forces that mould and change usage. The questions that this book grapples with are: Can we separate grammar from the other features of the language system and get a handle on it as an independent entity? Why should there be strikingly different notions and models of grammar? Are they (in)compatible? Which one or ones fit(s) best the needs of applied linguists if we assume that applied linguists address real-world problems through the lens of language? And which one(s) could make most sense to non-specialists? If grammar is not a fixed entity but a set of usage norms in constant flux, how can we persuade other professionals and the general public that this is a positive observation rather than a threat to civilised behaviour? This book draws upon both historical and modern grammars from across the globe to provide a multi-layered picture of world grammar. It will be useful to teachers and researchers of English as a first and second language, though the inclusion of examples from and occasional references to other languages (French, Spanish, Malay, Swedish, Russian, Welsh, Burmese, Japanese) is intended to broaden the appeal to teachers and researchers of other languages. It will be of use to final-year undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral students as well as secondary and tertiary level teachers and researchers in applied linguistics, second language acquisition and grammar pedagogy.

This book proposes that research into generative second language acquisition (GenSLA) can be applied to the language classroom. Assuming that Universal Grammar plays a role in second language development, it explores generalisations from GenSLA research. The book aims to build bridges between the fields of generative second language acquisition, applied linguistics, and language teaching; and it shows how GenSLA is poised to engage with researchers of second language learning outside the generative paradigm. Each chapter of Universal Grammar and the Second Language Classroom showcases ways in which GenSLA research can inform language pedagogy. Some chapters include classroom research that tests the effectiveness of teaching particular linguistic phenomena. Others review existing research findings, discussing how these findings are useful for language pedagogy. All chapters show how generative linguistics can enhance teachers’ expertise in language and second language development. “This groundbreaking volume ably takes on the gap that currently exists between generative linguistic theory in second language acquisition (GenSLA) and second language pedagogy, by gathering chapters from GenSLA researchers who are interested in the relevance and potential application of their research to second/foreign language teaching. It offers a welcome and thought-provoking contribution to any discussion of the relation between linguistic theory and practice. I recommend it not only for language teachers interested in deepening their understanding of the formal properties of the languages they teach, but also for linguists interested in following up on more practical consequences of the fruits of their theoretical and empirical research.” Donna Lardiere, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA

In this book I try to give a coherent and consistent overview of what an ecological approach to language learning might look like. This is not a fully fledged grand theory that aims to provide an explanation of everything, but an attempt to provide a rationale for taking an ecological world view and applying it to language education, which I regard as one of the most important of all human activities. Goethe once said that everything has been thought of before, but that the difficulty is to think of it again. The same certainly is true of the present effort. If it has any innovative ideas to offer, these lie in a novel combination of thoughts and ideas that have been around for a long, long time. The reader will encounter influences that range from Spinoza to Bakhtin and from Vygotsky to Halliday. The scope of the work is intentionally broad, covering all major themes that are part of the language learning process and the language teaching profession. These themes include language, perception and action, self, learning, critical pedagogy and research. At the same time I have attempted to look at both the macro and the micro sides of the ecological coin, and address issues from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. This, then, aims to be a book that can be read by practitioners and theoreticians alike, and the main idea is that it should be readable and challenging at the same time.

Diese Einführung in englischer Sprache präsentiert in 14 Kapiteln die grundlegenden Themen und Gegenstandsbereiche der Englischdidaktik. Gleichermaßen praxisnah wie theoretisch fundiert, behandelt der Band zentrale Prinzipien und Kompetenzbereiche eines modernen Fremdsprachenunterrichts. Ausgehend von den zentralen Akteur/innen (Lehrende und Lernende) und mit Blick auf die Teilbereiche der Sprach-, Literatur- und Kulturdidaktik werden zudem Vorschläge für den Einsatz unterschiedlicher Materialien und Medien diskutiert. Weitere Kapitel widmen sich den institutionellen Organisationsstrukturen und dem Bereich Assessment/Diagnose. Der Band erscheint in zweifarbiger Gestaltung, mit Definitionen und Beispielen sowie mit zahlreichen Abbildungen. This comprehensive introduction presents the fundamental topics and issues of TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) in 14 chapters. Integrating both profound theoretical and creative practical considerations, the central principles and competence domains of modern foreign language teaching are discussed. Starting with the main classroom agents (teachers and learners), the chapters outline a variety of content areas (language, literature, cultural issues) and thoroughly review materials, media and methods. Additional chapters are concerned with the historical development of English language teaching, its current institutional organisation as well as assessment and evaluation.

This edited collection examines a range of English Language Teaching (ELT) research in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). While the MENA context has witnessed considerable change in recent years, it has so far been under-represented in ELT research at both the regional and the international level. This book aims to fill that gap by surveying the current state of the field, examining in detail a range of issues and concepts, and suggesting future directions for further research. It will be of interest to ELT researchers and practitioners in general - not just those based in MENA contexts themselves.

A comprehensive manual for pre- and in-service ESL and EFL educators, this frontline text balances insights from current reading theory and research with highly practical, field-tested strategies for teaching and assessing L2 reading in secondary and post-secondary contexts. Teaching Readers of English: provides a through yet accessible survey of L2 reading theory and research addresses the unique cognitive and socioeducational challenges encountered by L2 readers covers the features of L2 texts that teachers of reading must understand acquaints readers with methods for designing reading courses, selecting curricular materials, and planning instruction explores the essential role of systematic vocabulary development in teaching L2 literacy includes practical methods for assessing L2 students’ proficiency, achievement, and progress in the classroom. Pedagogical features in each chapter include questions for reflection, further reading and resources, reflection and review questions, and application activities.