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Q: ESL teaches - good grammar books for higher students?
Hi teachers.
As the title suggests - I'm looking for a good English grammar book, but it's for those students who have learned the basics many years ago, but need to get the more complex stuff down pat.. so the focus is less on teaching basics, as on using it correctly.
Obviously, such books need to be readily available in China! And this is somewhat of a problem. (not PDF).
Thx
6 years 50 weeks ago in Teaching & Learning - China
Cambridge University publishes a series of books at different levels, and they are available in any good book English language book shop in China:
Essential Grammar in Use - you can get this book at Beginner, Pre-intermediate/Intermediate and Advanced levels.
each book contains good coverage of correct grammar usage as well as exercises for practice.
I use these also as the basis of speaking/listening/improvisation exercises.
Cambridge University publishes a series of books at different levels, and they are available in any good book English language book shop in China:
Essential Grammar in Use - you can get this book at Beginner, Pre-intermediate/Intermediate and Advanced levels.
each book contains good coverage of correct grammar usage as well as exercises for practice.
I use these also as the basis of speaking/listening/improvisation exercises.
I like the Cambridge books too, and have used them before.
The one problem I found with them was some of the language in the exercises. This wasn't only with the Cambridge books either.
I was teaching students who were quite young and while the grammar itself was at about the right level, the exercises in the book had a lot of verbs, nouns and adjectives the kids hadn't seen before so if I wanted to use the exercises I would need to introduce a lot of new vocab which would basically make one lesson take the time three lessons should take.
I got around this by just taking the examples and exercises they gave and re-writing them using the same grammatical points but using more appropriate vocabulary, then gave them out as worksheets..
Are you looking for a book all the students will buy? If they don't need to have a physical text book it doesn't necessarily need to be readily available in China.
Blondie_:
I agree that the exercises are not always the most appropriate.
for adult learners they are good for homework and revision, but can be adapted for class use.
Stiggs:
It really depends on what the students, or rather their parents, are expecting.
If they need to see a text book to know the teacher is legit, sticking to some sort of curriculum and not just making it up as they go then the book can't have a lot of language the kids won't understand.
If they don't care then I would just download Cambridge, or whatever other book is most appropriate for their needs and adapt it as I go.
Shining_brow:
Oh, ok... this is for IELTS students who can't get above 5.5 ... cos they haven't been taught right... and don't understand 'complex compound structures'.
(although, some aren't at the 'compound' bit yet...).
They tend to be able to understand them when written, but don't have the knack of producing them on their own.
(and, finally, I'm not doing the teaching ... I just tell the teachers what's missing...)
the great courses formerly the teaching company has a video series with a workbook on torrent sites, "English Grammar Bootcamp", that does a good job for high school students and college level.
