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RiverMystic · Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 1986

I'm about to embark on further training (Celta) and there are several grammar texts they recommend where I'm training. Sadly, none are available as e books. So to get a head start before the course begins, I'm looking for a great grammar book for teachers that is available as an ebook. I'll use my iPad, so kindle versions or those compatible with iBooks are the best.

Any recommendations? I am looking for something that covers medium to advanced stuff.

Cheers, RM

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 5:36 pm Post subject:

I've yet to make the leap to e-readers (though I do have a smartphone on which I can browse documents and pdfs, that sort of stuff, so I can see the attraction). The only e-grammars I'm really aware of are thus (AFAIK) just in CD-ROM form: Collins COBUILD on CD-ROM (which includes their excellent English Grammar, as well as English Usage, Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Wordbank. Last is a corpus of 5 million words, usually providing dozens of citations for each word. Full review here: http://www.tesl-ej.org/wordpress/issues/volume7/ej25/ej25m1/ ), and Carter and McCarthy's interesting but somewhat sprawling and not that widely known or used (perhaps Huddleston's - he's a bit of a grammarian - rather scathing review of it has something to do with that) book+CD-ROM The Cambridge Grammar of English. One of the CGE's features (apart from the general attention it gives to speech versus writing) is that all the example sentences have recorded audio.

To be honest, the Collins COBUILD English Grammar is cheap (only around £10 the last time I looked on Amazon) and light enough (just over a pound in weight, and less than an inch thick even at near 500 pages) that a paper copy shouldn't be out of the question, and it's probably an easier and more useful resource overall than e.g. Swan's A-Z "quick access" Practical English Usage (a common recommendation on CELTA courses).

I'm going to post some excerpts from several grammar-usage books soon, on another (Swan-related) thread, so people can compare them a bit. Just need to find the file or email where I typed them up previously lol.

grahamb · Joined: 30 Apr 2003 Posts: 1945

Try the British Council website; it contains dedicated grammar pages.

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 9:11 pm Post subject:

Hi Grahamb. I searched around the BC site but couldn't find any dedicated grammar pages, only various so-so articles and activities for shall we say the "practising" teacher. Do you have any specific sublinks?

grahamb · Joined: 30 Apr 2003 Posts: 1945

Sorry, they're on the "learnenglish" site, not the "teachingenglish" one. Rather bizarre, in my opinion, but there you are.

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/english-grammar

See also:

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/quick-grammar

There are online grammar exercises here:

http://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/grammar-exercises

The BC site is worth spending time on, as it has a lot of useful resources.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 11:27 pm Post subject:

Ah, thanks, those pages look much more like it! Come to think of it, I've actually browsed them a bit before, when a student referred to them, but I forgot to bookmark 'em.

grahamb · Joined: 30 Apr 2003 Posts: 1945

Something else that's worth looking at is their Language Assistant Manual. Although aimed at novice teachers, it's by no means a "Noddy's guide".

You can download it here:

http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/sites/teacheng/files/whole_manual.pdf

fluffyhamster · Posted: Wed Apr 09, 2014 3:51 pm Post subject:

OP: Collins COBUILD English Usage is available in a kindle edition:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/English-Usage-Collins-Cobuild-COBUILD-ebook/dp/B006UN3I46/

If you want to see any entries beyond what's available in the Look Inside preview, just ask and I'll copy and paste some from my CD-ROM. The book actually has quite a few entries dealing with grammar (e.g. Adjectives, Adverbs, Adverbials, Auxiliaries, Clauses, etc etc), communicative functions (e.g. Advising, Agreeing and disagreeing, Apologizing), and even a few notions or topics (e.g. Age).

RiverMystic · Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 1986

Thanks for all the help. However it really does look like the grammar book people are way behind the times as far as ebooks go. It just reinforces my perception that the most left-brained, formal institutions are the most backward and ill-equipped to cater for the needs of the modern world. And it is these places that are producing most of these books. Fluffyhamster, unfortunately that grammar book is only available in the UK - you can't buy it anywhere else, not even online. Another bizarre vestige of a bygone era being transferred onto the modern medium of the Internet! When will these people get with the times?

On the bright side, if you can produce a great grammar book and put it online, you may be onto a winner.

I've actually just been going to youtube and watching videos on particular grammar points. There's an amazing amount of stuff right there.

fluffyhamster · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 10:20 am Post subject:

Oh, that's a shame, RM! I was assuming the kindle version would be available wherever, seems very silly to limit it to just the UK! Evil or Very Mad

Maybe post a few of the better YT clips so we can have fun ripping them to shreds oops I mean enjoying them! Laughing

johnslat · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 12:20 pm Post subject:

Well, if you want to print out 437 pages . . . .

http://www.stiba-malang.ac.id/uploadbank/pustaka/ENGLISH%20GRAMMAR%20BOOK.pdf

Regards,
John

fluffyhamster · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 2:22 pm Post subject:

This doesn't look at all bad:
http://www.grammaring.com/contents

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

fluffyhamster · Posted: Thu Apr 10, 2014 2:32 pm Post subject:

I haven't visited the site/resource Johnslat posted, as it's untested according to my Norton Safe Search. Razz

RiverMystic · Joined: 13 Jan 2009 Posts: 1986

Thanks, and Swan's Practical English Usage - all 600+ pages - is also available via PDF download. Just google - available at a few locations. Works through iBooks on by iPad. Thanks for the tip, Mr Hamster.