| Book of the Month | ||
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Grammar Sucks | |
Publisher: Adams Media
Authors: Joanne Kimes & Gary Robert Muschla
US$14.25 (approx)
ISBN 978-1593376260
One of the basic rules of teaching EFL is not to embed examples of bad grammar in students' minds. So what to make of a book which has two uncorrected grammatical errors on the front cover? These are being used as a joke, but are rather typical of the approach of this book, which claims to be for 'people who hate rules but want to follow them anyway'. Ms Kimes is in fact more of an author than a teacher (she has written another book in this series called 'Pregnancy sucks') but Mr Muschla, an ex-teacher who has written several books on grammar, should know better, and probably does.
This is a slightly disorganized book, so readers will have to pay considerable attention to the index. It's also not clear whether the book is intended as a reference or to be read through from cover-to-cover. Anyone intending to read from cover-to-cover should be warned that this book has material that some other publishers take an entire bookshelf to get through. So in the early stages of Part 2 we are taught elementary material such as that third person present singular verbs end in 's'. But by the time we get to part three we have chapter headings such as 'Santa and other types of Clauses' and are studying advanced topics such as misplaced modifiers. (A misplaced modifier affects the wrong word in a sentence - for example saying 'She almost ate everything' when you mean 'She ate almost everything'.)There is a lot of English grammar contained in these 245 pages. The book tries - perhaps too hard - to be trendy, calling the reader 'young Skywalker' and calling one chapter 'Putting all the crap together'. This last is an example of why this book is not altogether suitable for EFL learners, as there is no warning that the language used here is of an inappropriate register. In the book, little grey bars on the side of the page indicate common errors which should be avoided - however, these do not include mis-usages which are done deliberately for humour.
Who is this book for? As we have mentioned, EFL students can find better books to study with. This book is written for native speakers with good English but poor grammar. Given the sad state of English grammar teaching in the last decades of the twentieth century, this takes in an entire generation. Because these readers tend to know bad grammar when they see it, the book can get away with using faulty grammar as a joke, and sometimes uses inappropriate language because readers understand what the writer is doing. Also, the book can cover a lot of ground because it assumes that the readers need English to be explained rather than taught. If you are one of 'the generation that grammar forgot' the good-humoured and easygoing style of the text may appeal to you. Otherwise, look elsewhere.
Verdict: Not for EFL students
Assessment 5/10