Product Description

A classic developmental skills text for intermediate to advanced students of English, Understanding and Using English Grammar is a comprehensive reference grammar as well as a stimulating and teachable classroom text. While keeping the same basic approach and material as in earlier editions, the Third Edition more fully develops communicative and interactive language-learning activities. Some of the new features are: *Numerous "real communication" opportunities *More options for interactive work in pairs and groups *Additional open-ended communicative tasks for both speaking and writing *Expanded error analysis exercises *Interesting and lively new exercise material *Shorter units for easy class use The program components include the Student Book, Workbook, Chartbook, Teacher's Guide, and Companion Website. Also available: Understanding and Using English Grammar Interactive (a multimedia CD-ROM).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #72855 in Books
• Published on: 1998-07-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 475 pages

From the Publisher
The classic text for intermediate through advanced students provides a clear, visual presentation of grammar in terms easily understandable to students. Grammar explanations teach situationally appropriate English, both formal and colloquial and make distinctions between British and American usage. Each presentation is followed by graded activities that promote speaking, listening, and writing skills. The revised edition features an improved organization, expansion and/or clarification of grammar points, more illustations, and new excersises. It is now available in split editions with accompanying workbooks and teacher's manuals for increased flexibility and ease of use.

From the Back Cover

A classic developmental skills text for intermediate to advanced students of English, Understanding and Using English Grammar is a comprehensive reference grammar as well as a stimulating and teachable classroom text.

While keeping the same basic approach and material as in earlier editions, the Third Edition more fully develops communicative and interactive language-learning activities. Some of the new features are:

• Numerous "real communication" opportunities
• More options for interactive work in pairs and groups
• Additional open-ended communicative tasks for both speaking and writing
• Expanded error analysis exercises
• Interesting and lively new exercise material
• Shorter units for easy class use

The program components include the Student Book, Workbook, Chartbook, Teacher's Guide, and Companion Website.

Also available: Understanding and Using English Grammar Interactive (a multimedia CD-ROM).

Customer Reviews

For those who crave grammar
This book is a comprehensive reference grammar/workbook for non-native speakers of English. If you are trying to choose between Azar's grammar books, the "Blue" book is intended for intermediate to advanced students, while the "Black" book is for beginning to intermediate and the "Red" for raw beginners. A grammar outline from the "Blue" book is also available without exercises.

The book is divided into chapters covering notorious grammar points, including: verb tenses, modals, passive voice, gerunds and infinitives, singular and plural, adjective clauses, noun clauses, connecting expressions, and conditional sentences. There are also appendices covering terminology, question formation, negation, articles, phrasal verbs, and error correction. On average, each chapter has 15-20 articles covering a single grammar point or contrast in detail. Atypical article starts with a grammar description, which is usually presented in the form of a diagram or chart, supported with several examples and explanations. Then follow several exercises, which mostly require the reader to write in the correct form of the word, although oral exercises are common, and there are occasional editing exercises.

The book's strength is the clarity of its grammatical explanations, and Azar's simplified diagrams of verb tenses are now standard in many ESL classrooms. Students who crave grammar instruction will adore this book. They like to read the grammatical descriptions, and they get a sense of accomplishment from filling in all the blanks. But will this really improve their grammar? If a student is completely unaware of how a grammatical rule works, then this book will go a long way towards making the rule clear. The exercises help reinforce each topic, but it takes a lot more implementation of a rule than the 20-50 sentences found in each set of follow-up exercises in this book to make a rule automatic. Does doing exercises improve grammar at all? The jury is still out on that one, but from my own classroom experience, even students who zealously complete every exercise in the book correctly show little consequent progress in their written or spoken grammar. My own personal belief is that students improve their grammar mostly through extensive exposure to grammatically correct language, either spoken or written, and what little exercise they get from this book won't make that much of a difference (as long as they understand the rules they should be watching out for).

Nevertheless, many students enjoy working with this book because they think they are spending their study time on a worthwhile topic. That leaves the way open for hidden collateral gains. Azar uses a wide range of vocabulary in her examples and exercises, and most students will develop their active vocabulary by using this book, especially if they are encouraged to pay attention to new words. Many of the dialogs that Azar uses are inane classroom dialogs- -if they could only cover real information worth learning about, then she could maintain the readers' interest more, as well as expose students to real world information. In any case, if grammar is what you want, it would be hard to beat this book, due to its clarity, accuracy, and exercises.

Clear and easy to follow
The geniuses that controlled my education decided that I should skip fourth grade reading because they caught me reading Mark Twain in third grade. I can't imagine what in the WORLD they were thinking, as I came to learn years later that in fourth grade reading they taught - you guessed it - grammar! And boy, did I suffer. My written grammar was absolutely horrendous for years, and even though I continued to be placed in advanced or honors English classes throughout high school, whenever my papers were returned to me the "concept" side came back with an A, and the "grammar" side came back with a D or an F.

There's no substitute for learning young, but this is the closest thing to it. I've never seen a grammar book that's easier to understand than this one. Forget the Idiot's Guides or Dummies books, and invest a little more in this one and the accompanying workbooks. If you're really interested in boning up on your grammar skills, this will be of tremendous assistance.

Also, if you're looking to buy the workbooks, remember that this is the THIRD edition, that it is in blue, and so you should conduct your search for the accompanying workbooks by first identifying those that are blue, and make sure that they're for the third edition. There are several editions available here on Amazon, so buy wisely.

This book is great!
This was a very useful and easy to understand grammar textbook for me when I took ESL classes in the USA. I have already recommended the book to two of my friends who are studying English on their own.

If you are poor at English grammar, this book is for you! There are lots of drills and exercises in every chapter, so you can practice writing sentences using the grammar learned and remember it.