Kathleen,
I've taken a different approach from many on the list in that instead of
choosing a textbook I've chosen a general reference grammar, Sidney
Greenbaum's The Oxford English Grammar (Oxford University Press 1996).
They can order it new from Amazon for $43.42 plus shipping.
Here's why. I know that I can't cover any significant amount of grammar
in one semester, particularly for students who have little formal
exposure to grammar before that class. If I want them to take something
of long-term value away from the course, it has to be in part the
ability to find answers to questions themselves, to explore grammatical
problems in some productive way. My problem with textbooks is that they
tend to be limited to what can be covered in a semester and they tend to
come from some specific perspective on the nature of grammar. Greenbaum
has a perspective, too, but it's a little closer to what is found more
widely in handbooks and editing guides, without a lot of unnecessarily
prescriptive statements. He describes standard English on the basis of
real examples chosen from a vast corpus of many genres of modern written
English.
During the course we go through the book top-down. That is, Greenbaum
provides very careful chapter outlines that go into very fine detail in
some cases. In chapter that do that, I tell students to read major
heads, section heads, and certain more detailed sections, but not to
read the chapter as if it were a normal piece of prose. We do a fair
amount of work that involves finding information about words, phrases
and sentences through the index, and students find interestingly
different solutions to problems that way.
Much of the text material that we study grammatically is text that they
collect to the specifications of a particular assignment or text that
they write themselves or in small groups. The exceptions to this are
some short passages and short poems that I select because they
illustrate particular points.
What I hope students take away from the course, and I tell them this
several times during it, is the knowledge and confidence to use a
well-prepared, fairly thorough reference grammar both for their own
study and for background in their teaching.
Herb
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kathleen Bethell
Sent: Thursday, May 25, 2006 1:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Favorite Textbooks?
I am new to the list and have been enjoying the recent discussions
immensely. I am developing a new, 200-level online grammar course for
students at a community college, and I am now faced with the daunting
task
of choosing a textbook. I've looked at a few, but I'd really like to
know
what the experts on this list like to use for their courses. Many thanks
for
any guidance you all are willing to offer!
Kathleen Bethell
Ivy Tech Community College
Bloomington, Indiana
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