Hi Kathleen,
I know what you're talking about, and I've created short handouts for
students walking through parts of speech, types of inflections,
syntactic patterns, etc. But these are small patches and not ultimately
satisfying.
I, too, would like to know of a 100-page pamphlet or so, but two
resources may be helpful: Amy Benjamin's ENGAGING GRAMMAR has a good
short overview of grammatical terms in a late chapter (it builds on
GRAMMAR ALIVE!). I've also just discovered, via the kindness of an ATEG
list member, STRUCTURE AND MEANING IN ENGLISH by Graeme Kennedy
(Longman): it purports to teach the basics of English that TESOL
instructors will need, but its level seems fairly well suited to your
students. It has about 250 pages on grammar and syntax, as well as other
chapters on phonology, etc., and may be an excellent shadow text for
introducing many basic concepts in HEL, but it is neither cheap (@$30)
nor short.
Natalie Gerber
SUNY Fredonia
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kathleen M. Ward
Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2007 1:49 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Grammar overview?
Hi, everyone,
This is sort of tangential to the recent discussion, but..
I've just finished teaching a summer school course in History of the
English Language. It wasn't a total disaster, but you could see it
from there.
I was using Laurel Brinton's new book (and I wish I liked it better
than I do). One of the things she does NOT discuss--and she has this
in common with every other HEL textbook I've seen--is basic
grammatical information.
My class was full of graduating English majors (in the teaching
emphasis track) and they had extreme difficulties with concepts like
active and passive, subject, direct object, and subordinate clause.
So, since I may be in the same fix next summer, I was wondering if
anyone knew of some brief, basic overview of basic grammatical
concepts that I could order. (I envision a pamphlet-like publication
of under a hundred pages. It would have to be inexpensive, because
HEL textbooks are extremely pricey.)
Any ideas? Any internet sources? The internet sources I've seen
(such as the University College London grammar course, which I like
very much) are too extensive.
Kathleen Ward
University of California, Davis
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