English Teaching Grammar

Author: Mariana Sáez-Mu?oz et al.
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-08-01
Features: English Grammar for Teachers (Second Edition) is a grammar book written by American linguists Mariana Sáez-Mu?oz and Diana Larsen-Freeman, based on new research findings in linguistics and developed from teaching practices, specifically designed for English teachers. This book combines grammatical knowledge with communicative purposes, presenting a fresh perspective on English grammar. It also provides open-ended teaching suggestions and lively grammar exercises to help teachers employ inspirational teaching methods in their future grammar instruction. This book is an invaluable reference for English teachers and is suitable as a training textbook for English teacher educators or as a grammar textbook for English majors preparing to teach. It can also be used by English learners at an intermediate level and above for self-study.
What we strive to do is to provide reasons for why English grammar works the way it does, rather than simply listing various rules. The rules for subclauses and sentences sometimes appear arbitrary, making them challenging to learn. However, we believe that explaining why language takes this form can help students better understand English grammar. Many linguistic grammars delve deeply into a rigorously defined set of language structures, while teaching grammars aim to include as many comprehensive grammatical structures as possible. Therefore, we have made every effort to include the most common grammatical structures that ESL/EFL teachers typically encounter in the classroom. Our goal is to help ESL/EFL teachers address the problems students face during their learning process.
Understanding the difficulties inherent in English itself can also help clarify students' learning challenges. Difficulties often arise in the following situations: when certain structures do not conform to linguistic norms, when they are used infrequently or are obscure, when a single structure serves multiple functions, when some structures have semantic overlaps, or when the variations in their usage do not follow simple inductive patterns. We hope to help teachers grasp these learning challenges by providing relevant information about the forms, meanings, and uses of major morphological and syntactic structures in English.