Page 36 - ELG2011 Nov Issue 473

RESOURCES . REVIEWS & RESOURCES

How to demystify LINGUAPRESS Grammar reference as a teacher and student resource

By definition, reference books are not for teaching with; they are for referring to,
grammar so to the question, “Can I use a grammar book to teach with?” the answer is
normally, “No!” But to a slightly different question, “Can a grammar book help me
with my teaching?”, the answer for most teachers will be, “Yes, certainly!”
While some students never want to learn any rules, others want and indeed
need rules, so a teacher who can explain the rules will have more success than one
who cannot.
Andrew Rossiter discusses how to get over Take the eternal question of -ing words, which have an annoying habit of
confusing students and tying teachers up in knots. Look at these two sentences,
our hang-ups about teaching grammar which could confuse any student:
1. Careful driving could save your life.
2. Driving carefully could save your life.
ast week I heard from an old friend, wherever and in whatever context they are Why do we use careful in the first one and carefully in the second? The answer is
an experienced teacher who has teaching, language teachers who had little that driving in the first sentence is used as a verbal noun, so it’s qualified by an
taught EFL in different parts of the formal grammar training at school themselves can get by without a map on the roads we EFL teachers, and an even smaller minority adjective. In the second it’s used as a gerund, so it can’t be qualified by an
Lworld, now teaching Spanish in a are less likely to stress its importance in their know close to home but for anything more of their students. adjective. Without using ‘grammar’ this distinction, which in this case is neither
London school, where she works part time. own teaching. adventurous a map is a great help… as long Between the two groups there is not a lot. functional nor contextual, is pretty well impossible to make.
She related an anecdote that made me sit up: While grammar is not quite so excluded as we know how to read it. It can even help Swan’s Practical English Usage differs from the For their own advantage and for that of their students, teachers need to have
“When we were helping the kids with their from the school curriculum in the UK today us in areas that we think we already know other heavyweights inasmuch as the author access to a grammar book that can explain English grammar in simple terms,
1
Spanish homework, one student said, ‘We’re as a few years ago, clearly it is not as quite well. (Don’t look for the language was a practising ELT professional rather than without confounding students with complex linguistic explanations and vocabulary
so lucky that English doesn’t have things like important in the UK as it is in many other equivalent of a satnav; there isn’t one.) a professor of linguistics; but it too is heavy – that they will not understand even in their own language. Here is a simple
nouns, verbs and adjectives like Spanish has.’ countries. Yet without the help of explicit Murphy’s English Grammar in Use and 768 pages in the 2016 edition, and is an A-Z explanation of -ing words taken from The Descriptive Grammar of English. Most
Sadly, this was a reflection of the standard of grammar, learning any language, in particular Essential English Grammar in Use, the world’s encyclopaedia of English, not a thematic students should understand this – maybe with a teacher’s help. Of course, whether
language teaching in local schools!” a foreign language, surely becomes more best-selling grammar books, sold over 30 grammar. Parrot’s Grammar for English they remember it or not is a different matter.
It reminded me of another anecdote, difficult than it need be. million copies worldwide between them in Language Teachers is a lengthy book for
related by a former student of mine, a French Mastering any language is like learning to the thirty years up to 2015. That sounds like teachers, not students. Some of the 1. The gerund is a verb form ending in -ing which is used as if it were a noun.
woman who had been taken on by a large UK be a good driver. To communicate effectively a lot of sales, but actually it is only 1 million a ‘heavyweights’ have given rise to lighter Since it is a verb, it can not be qualified by an adjective, nor preceded by an
company. “It’s incredible,” she wrote to me in a language it is essential to understand the year for a market which, according to the ‘student’ versions, but like the tomes they are article, but, like other forms of the verb, it can be modified by an adverb and
after a few months, “Everyone here comes rules and apply them. Children may learn British Council will number two billion derived from, these require an understanding take a complement.
2
and asks me, a French speaker, to check their their native language through ‘immersion’; learners by 2020s. of linguistics. 2. A verbal noun is a noun formed from a verb; some verbal nouns end in -ing.
writing. It seems like I’m the only one who’s they may reach a stage where they absorb the In the late 20th century there were a Verbal nouns, like other nouns, can take a determiner, and be qualified by
ever studied English grammar…!” rules of grammar without actually learning couple of compact and far lighter grammar adjectives.
Do we in the UK, and more generally in them – or as my first quote above showed, I was fortunate reference books accessible to teachers and 3. A participle is an adjective or part of a participial phrase qualifying a noun or
English-speaking countries, have a hang-up without even knowing that they exist. students, by Coe and Eastwood & Makin, but a pronoun. The present participle, ending in -ing, is also used in the
about grammar? Apparently, yes. School Learning an additional language is very enough to begin my both are long out of print – leaving a gap progressive aspect of verb tenses.
education in the UK places great emphasis different, especially when this is done in a education at a time which I have tried to fill with my Descriptive
on the development of independent learning language class. Students do not have the Grammar of English, a grammar reference This example assumes that students know what adverbs, adjectives, nouns and
skills, on enquiry and critical thinking, and time or opportunity to just ‘acquire’ the rules when grammar was book for teachers and learners with no verbs are; but that’s grammar.
learning grammar is not an essential part of and principles of grammar by listening to still part of the school background in linguistics. As Coe and Even very experienced teachers may have trouble distinguishing between a
that paradigm. fluent speakers. Eastwood showed, it is quite possible to gerund and a verbal noun… and explaining it to a student. In this situation, having
This may explain why the UK is a creative I believe that teachers who ignore the curriculum, taught produce a concise and accessible grammar of an easily understandable grammar reference book as an instantly accessible
nation with some of the world’s best importance of explicit grammar are making English in under 250 pages. resource is not just useful; it may be vital.
universities. But many learners need rules, their job harder than it need be. Grammar is from an early age; but
and the downplaying of grammar in UK the framework on which the tapestry of since then things have The need for grammar
schools is a self-perpetuating problem; language is woven, and the first stage of I have tried to discover a list of the grammar linguistics was not something that needed to be learned until year 6. Clearly, as the
teaching English grammar is to ensure that changed. skills required for the Cambridge C1 teaching to language learners. opening lines of this article show, the message
LINGUAPRESS that there are rules and standards. like Murphy’s, or those by Eastwood, Biber, to exist. The word grammar barely gets a raised in recent years to lament the poor 2. The English Effect, British Council 2013.
Advanced English test, but this does not seem
students realise that it actually exists and
is not getting through to all.
Yet one only needs to hear the voices
Practice grammars or ‘student grammars’
mention in relation to this exam, beyond the

writing skills of so many otherwise well-
https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/
Mapping the way to grammar skills
different levels, make up the bulk of the ELT
of it. By contrast, for the French equivalent,
Compared to many other languages, much of Alexander and others, often available in fact that the exam tests students’ knowledge educated people in the UK and North files/english-effect-report-v2.pdf
America, to realise that grammar is not
the basic grammar of English is simple; there grammar book market; but rather than the DALF C1 exam, several websites list the actually an optional extra that language Andrew Rossiter
are few word endings to master, word order reference books, these tend to be grammar that candidates need to master. students, in whatever context, can choose to was senior lecturer
plays a vital role, and it is easy to express grammatically-themed workbooks where the Somewhere in the UK / Anglophone ignore. Understanding the basics of grammar in English and head
basic ideas without ever having consciously practice element takes precedence over the approach to grammar, there remains a is a vital skill for anyone wanting to use of Applied
learned any rules – which is one of the explanation of grammar. They are popular cultural antipathy, the idea that grammar is English beyond the basic level of simple Languages at the
reasons why language education in the UK with students and teachers, and in most cases either a skill that students will acquire communication. This is worth remembering university in
puts less stress on grammar. well suited to their target market. automatically ‘by practice’ (true up to a by those teaching English as a native Besançon, France.
But using English beyond the needs of At the other end of the scale come the point), or else that grammar is something too language; for those teaching English to Today he runs
basic communication calls for more than (figuratively and literally) heavyweight elitist to trouble anyone but professional speakers of other languages, it is even more linguapress.com
intuition and word order: it requires knowing grammars aimed at a very different category linguists and grammarians. important. website, providing open-access reading and
how to communicate with precision, without of reader. The classics from Crystal, I was fortunate enough to begin my grammar resources for EFL / ESL teachers
ambiguity, and in a form that others can Huddlestone, Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech et al, education at a time when grammar was still Notes and students. He is the author of A
understand. And this is a skill that cannot be sometimes weighing in at over 1800 pages, part of the school curriculum, taught from an 1. The official UK government guidelines for Descriptive Grammar of English (2020)
properly mastered until a learner has at least analyse the English language as a linguistic early age; but since then things have KS2 English include modal verb, relative published by KDP, available as an ebook or
a basic understanding of grammar. system, and by and large are written by changed. Grammar as an academic discipline pronoun and relative clause as vocabulary that paperback through Amazon (ISBN 979-
If learning a language is like learning to linguists for linguists; they do not address the was subsumed into linguistics, and there was pupils should acquire and understand in year 8645611750).
Rossiter’s book fills a gap in the market drive a car, a grammar book is like a map; we needs of more than a very small minority of a general and justified consensus that 5, though curiously subject and object are not
36 November 2020 editorial@elgazette.com 37