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Title: Practical English Usage by Michael Swan ISBN: 0-19-431197-X Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: April, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.93 (14 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: an excellent reference book!
Comment: I have a copy of Practical English Usage on my desk at school. I have other grammar reference books, such as Quirk and Greenbaum, at home, but this is by far the most useful for a teacher of English as a foreign language. Swan's style is to focus on the problem points of learners, and explain them and in simple, pithy and purposeful, everyday language to the extent that an advanced learner would be able to understand. As a teacher, you can often save yourself a lot of hassle simply by quoting from it. I like Practical English Usage because the examples are real, living English taken from the British National Corpus, or are realistic enough to be acceptable as such. Too many grammar books borrow their English from the past, or from the dialects of ivory-tower academics. This book redresses this imbalance. If you are not British, fear not, as another feature is its thorough coverage of the differences between British and American usage. (Other dialects are not covered.) If you are a teacher of English as a foreign language, or a smart student, you will not be disappointed with this Practical English Usage.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Well-Written Reference to English Grammar
Comment: As a teacher of English as a Foreign Language I use Michael Swan's book often. It is organized alphabetically by topic and provides clear explanations to various types of usage. Need to find out about the use of the subjunctive form in English or whether it is permitted to use they/them/their to refer to a single indefinite person? This reference can answer those as well as many other elementary or advanced questions that may come up. The only source of confusion I have found was his partial omitting the terms 0,1,2,3 and Mixed Conditional tenses, grouping these all instead under "if". Many students learn the conditional tenses using the 0-M system and find it quite handy and useful in learning the various structures and meanings. The author mentions types 1-3 on pages 245-6, and then goes on to insist quite correctly that there are many different structures for "if". However, he fails to mention the "0" and "M" conditionals, which would account for most of the rest (including conditional sentences that do not use "if"). In all this could be a rather minor irritant to at least some users of this book.
To repeat my view, this is an excellent reference and one I recommend to my advanced students.
Rating: 5
Summary: Invaluable Resource for English Teachers and Students
Comment: As an English teacher, I can't live without this book. For many English speakers, it is difficult to explain some of the more esoteric points of grammar. In my experience, I've found that most grammar books are too basic, are filled with lots of unnecessary grammar exercises, or are difficult to use. This book, however, is easy to use and is created for the English teaching professional rather than for the English student. It's a breeze to check up on difficult points. All of the grammar points are listed in alphabetical order in an encyclopedic manner. In my teaching career, I've been asked many difficult questions that were difficult for me to answer. Every time, Swan's Practical English Usage came to my rescue. Every English teacher should have a copy of this one.
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Title: A Practical English Grammar by A. J. Thomson, A. V. Martinet, A. J. Thompson ISBN: 0194313425 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: January, 1987 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: How English Works: A Grammar Practice Book by Michael Swan, Walter Swan, Catherine Walter ISBN: 0194314561 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: November, 1997 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: How to Teach English by Jeremy Harmer ISBN: 0582297966 Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: August, 1998 List Price(USD): $31.93 |
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Title: The Practice of English Language Teaching, Third Edition by Jeremy Harmer ISBN: 0582403855 Publisher: Pearson ESL Pub. Date: 10 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $36.66 |
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Title: Grammar Practice Activities : A Practical Guide for Teachers by Penny Ur ISBN: 0521338476 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 15 December, 1988 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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