Overall rating

5

Comments

“I tried hard. You hardly tried! Why, teacher?”

A trainee teacher, beginning a course, or a new teacher starting at a school, may well fear a student undermining their confidence or authority with an unexpected grammar question that they don’t feel they can correctly answer. Rather than bolting out the classroom door or bluffing a feeble response, teachers for 30 years have been referring to Raymond Murphy’s bestseller, English Grammar in Use, to dig them out of a hole (Unit 101 has the answer to the example above). Although there are also grammar books in the series available at elementary and advanced levels, this intermediate version is often recommended on training courses as the most common grammar points are included but there isn’t too much information or complexity to deal with.

English Grammar in Use is specifically intended for B1/B2 learners to use for self-study without a teacher and has a dual function as a grammar reference and grammar practice book. Students are discouraged from demotivating plodding through each consecutive unit and instead are prompted to try a self-diagnostic approach and work on the grammar that they have problems with. There is a Study Guide (p326) to help with this, where learners answer multiple-choice questions on grammar points featured in the book. Each question refers to relevant units that students can read and study if they are weaker in that area. For example, how many answers are possible in the following (from p333)?

13.2          Lisa was carrying a ………………………….bag

                  A  black small plastic   B  small and black plastic

                  C  small black plastic   D  plastic small black    

The only correct answer allowed is ‘C’. Learners (or teachers) who need to understand why this is the correct answer are directed to the relevant Study Unit on page 198 where they can learn about why adjectives are used in a particular order and then do practice exercises to reinforce and consolidate this.

The book is organized into sections dealing with different grammatical areas such as ‘modals’, ‘prepositions’ and ‘phrasal verbs,’ with each divided into several units. There are useful summaries of some of the main grammar points in the book to be found in the appendices, which can be used for revision. There is also an appendix showing spelling rules (that teachers may find helpful) and another interesting appendix focussing on differences between British and American English. It is pointed out, for example, that in American English it is possible to say “There aren’t enough accommodations” (p300) but not in British English where the word ‘accommodation’ is considered to be uncountable.

Although English Grammar in Use is designed for self-study, there are several units where learners may need a teacher to help them fully grasp the meaning of a grammar point - often because the context is under-established in the grammar presentations. Imagine what a student who had never studied the 3^rd conditional  would make of the following example from unit 40:

Last month Gary was in hospital for a few days. Rachel didn’t know this, so she didn’t go to visit him. They met a few days ago.

Rachel said:

If I’d known you were in hospital, I would have gone to see you.

Rachel said: If I’d known (=If I had known) you were in hospital. This tells us that she didn’t know.

I wonder if Rachel really would have visited Gary even if she had known he was in hospital. Could she be lying? Why was Gary in hospital for a few days and what is his relationship with Rachel? Perhaps the meaning would be clearer with a more visual example situation such as “If Rachel hadn’t shot Gary, he wouldn’t have gone to hospital” or “she wouldn’t have gone to prison” (you can imagine the accompanying images).

The related 3^rd conditional practice exercises may help students with the form of the 3^rd conditional but I’m not convinced they would necessarily understand the precise meaning of what they were writing without a teacher there to concept check. The short presentation sections tend to function better as a reminder to students who have encountered the grammar before or where visuals are used to make the context and meaning clear. Successful examples are where ‘may and might’ are introduced (p58) and ‘adjectives ending in –ing and –ed’ are presented (p196).

There is no shortage of practice exercises in English Grammar in Use and the accompanying CD-Rom, which includes practice exercises, review exercises and then further practice exercises. (There is also the English Grammar in Use Supplementary Exercises Book that is available as an additional component.) The majority of these grammar exercises tend to be gap-fills, sentence-completion tasks, making sentences from prompts or choosing the correct word to use in a sentence.  Occasionally I feel there is a lack of imagination shown in the content of some of these tasks, which could instead be more relevant or engaging for students. For example on page 81 learners need to imagine the following situation and write a sentence using ‘I wish…’

4. You’ve painted the gate red. Now you think that red was the wrong colour.

     You say:………………………………………………………………………………………………………

I wonder if the majority of learners will relate to this example? Possibly, particularly the ones who own gates that need painting every 20 years (perhaps the author experienced this regret once). I’d rather a situation and task such as: ‘You were caught cheating on an English exam and now can’t go to university this year as planned. You regret this. I wish…’

There is some use of personalization in a few of the practice exercises (e.g. with ‘used to’ on p37 and ‘present perfect’ on p29) where students use their own experiences and ideas to make sentences. Although I’d like to see more of this type of practice activity - as it could make the grammar practice more interesting for students - I realise that as this is predominantly a self-study book so students may prefer exercises that have answers that they can check.

An excellent detail included in each unit is a text box at the foot of the page showing links to other units where there is some overlap with the featured grammar point. For example unit 134 deals with ‘Verb + preposition about and of’ and refers learners to a relevant, connected grammar point in unit 55B that focuses on ‘Remind/warn somebody to’. This study guidance offers learners useful suggestions for how they could continue their progress through the book.

Overall rating

4

What outstanding strengths/ weaknesses do you feel this title possesses?

Strengths

• Very effective for learners who want to review and revise grammar
• Straightforward to use and clearly organized into logical categories
• Suitably pitched at Intermediate learners and trainee teachers who are not overloaded with information or complexity
• The ‘Grammar Glossary’ is very useful for trainee or novice teachers who don’t feel confident with the meaning of grammar terminology

Weaknesses

• There is no information about pronunciation difficulties associated with the grammar points
• The context for the grammar presentation situations is sometimes under-established for students doing self-study who are approaching the grammar for the first time
• Shortage of personalized practice activities

Other comments

• An online edition is available and also English Grammar in Use mobile apps
• There is a practice book called English Grammar in Use Supplementary Exercises to revise and consolidate the grammar studied in English Grammar in Use