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Rediscover Grammar (third edition) | |
Publisher: Pearson Longman
Author: David Crystal
253 pages.
£ 11.99
ISBN: 0582 84862 8
Most EFL students are well aware that grammar is important. But when David Crystal wrote the first edition of this book 15 years ago, many schools in Britain did not teach the subject, which is why it needs to be 'rediscovered' by those people whom the British educational system left grammatically illiterate. David Crystal is both an expert on English and a very clear writer. (Crystal clear, if we must make the obvious pun!). His book calls itself 'an introduction to the basic ways that grammar is used in English' but in fact it is a remarkably detailed textbook that both teachers and students will find useful.
The book is divided into fourteen main sections, and each section has many subdivisions. For example the section on pronouns explains what pronouns are, and their role in a sentence. Then there are small sections on different kinds of pronouns, from personal pronouns, reflexive pronouns, possessive pronouns, reciprocal pronouns, relative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, and demonstrative pronouns all the way to indefinite pronouns.
This kind of detail is repeated throughout the book, so that early chapters cover fairly well known topics such as Adjectives, but later chapters are on Adjuncts and Disjuncts, and finally we move into relatively advanced topics such as Prosody and Existential Sentences. There are small black and white cartoons mixed into the text. They are mildly amusing and take up no extra space.Who is this book for? Anyone who wants to improve their grammar will be able to do so with this book. It is small but very detailed. There are no exercises, only explanations. Students may like to look through this book for interesting points which their teacher may not know, and teachers may need this book to defend themselves against such questions. (The index allows you to find answers quickly.)
Verdict: Small but comprehensive
Assessment 9/10