July 2013
BOOK REVIEWS
GRAMMAR MEETS CORPUS
Melinda Sayavedra, Oregon State University

Grammar and Beyond.(2012). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

When choosing a textbook, instructors seek a good fit between the text, the curriculum, the students and the teachers. The format, content, explanations, examples, exercises, and tasks need to meet the needs and goals of the students and teachers using the book (Byrd, 2001). Additionally, the textbook should be informed by current research in second language acquisition which emphasizes helping students notice how language is formed and used, develop vocabulary, negotiate meaning, and use language appropriately and meaningfully (Richards, 2006). In selecting a grammar textbook, I also consider the following questions.

Does the Textbook Integrate Form, Meaning, and Use of Grammar Structures?

Grammar isn’t simply a set of rules that focuses solely on form. Grammar occurs in a context. Native speakers make choices about how they are going to say something based on context. There are many ways to say the same thing, but not all of them are appropriate in every circumstance. Grammar needs to be taught in a context in order for students to be able to make sense of when and why a particular structure is used (Larsen-Freeman, 2003). Grammar and Beyond, like most grammar textbooks today, recognizes the need for this three-part focus on form, meaning, and use by providing a natural context through which to emphasize and practice a given structure. What makes Grammar and Beyond different is that the authors have researched in which contexts certain structures are used most frequently and use this data to inform all aspects of their grammar series.

Will the Topics Be of Interest to My Students?

Grammar and Beyond introduces grammar structures through a variety of topics, most of which are geared to university students, such as college life, study habits, and making connections through the use of technology. The intended audience for this series is clearly young adults in academic English programs. The readings are up to date and appealing to this age group, their lifestyle, and their focus on matriculating into a university or finding the perfect career.

Closely related to the question of topic is the vocabulary used in the textbook. Grammar and Beyond introduces the grammar through a reading or a written dialogue or interview in which the structure being focused on is boldfaced. There is a prereading question to get students focused on the topic, and some potentially troublesome words are glossed. The authors of Grammar and Beyond carefully integrate vocabulary and concepts from the reading into subsequent exercises, so students get the needed repetition and practice with key vocabulary related to the topic (including words from the Academic Word List), but don’t have to struggle with entirely new vocabulary while working with a grammar structure.

Is the Grammar Presentation Inductive or Deductive?

Grammar and Beyond includes an exercise labeled Notice, which poses questions to students about target structures in the opening reading. This leads students to discover rules about form, meaning, and use through an inductive process. This is followed by charts that describe form, meaning, and use based on corpus research. I appreciate this balance of an inductive and deductive presentation for consciousness-raising and the fact that the work of designing inductive questions has been done for me.

Is There a Focus on Developing Both Accuracy and Fluency?

“The ultimate goal of learning is to be able to use the new language both accurately and fluently” (Richards, 2006, p. 23). An effective textbook provides structured, semistructured, and communicative practice. Grammar and Beyond includes all three types of practice exercises. What it does differently from some grammar texts is that it intersperses communicative tasks, those that require authentic communication, among more structured exercises, so students don’t have to wait until the end of the unit to use the target structure in meaningful ways or, as my students say, “do the fun stuff.” In Grammar and Beyond these exercises are usually labeled Pair Work, Group Work, or Over to You. There are also more communicative activities available online for each unit.

How Long Are the Exercises?

Sometimes it feels like grammar books beat the proverbial dead horse with overly long exercises. In Grammar and Beyond, fill-in-the-blank exercises are shorter than in many other grammar books I’ve used. There is a wide variety of exercise types, and each of those is kept to a reasonable length while allowing for sufficient practice. There is plenty of supplemental material available for additional practice, including a workbook, a CD-ROM for teachers, and online activities and resources for students and teachers.

Is Grammar Practiced Through Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking?

Most current grammar textbooks include exercises in all skills areas. This book is no different. There are appropriate listening, speaking, reading, and writing tasks. Grammar and Beyond is particularly strong in developing grammar through writing. Each unit has an Avoid Common Mistakes section followed by an editing task. These are based on data from the Cambridge Learner Corpus. This saves me from having to create my own “Fix the Mistakes” exercises using thinly disguised examples from my students’ papers. And (no surprise) the mistakes focused on in the book are the same ones my students make.

This exercise is followed by information on how to use the target structures in writing, a prewriting task in which students analyze a piece of writing, and finally a writing task and self-edit check. The writing tasks are at paragraph level. Grammar and Beyond also includes an online component called Writing Skills Interactive for developing writing skills such as writing effective topic and supporting sentences. This is a fantastic resource. For many lower level writing courses and for programs in which students are not planning to matriculate into university, I would consider using Grammar and Beyond with its online writing component as my writing skills textbook. The Level 4 book focuses specifically on the structure of an academic essay.

Does the Textbook Incorporate Findings From Corpus Linguistics Analysis?

With the surge in corpus linguistics research, I have added this question to the list. This is where Grammar and Beyond is unique. Biber, Conrad, and Reppen (1998) suggest that corpora studies on frequency distribution, association patterns, and choice between variants be used in informing and designing ESL texts. Because at least one of the authors of this series is also a lead researcher in the use of corpus linguistics, that’s exactly what this series does. The information in the charts has been tested against real-world data from the Cambridge International Corpus to reflect authentic language use. Additionally, there are sections in each unit labeled Data From the Real World. These brief sections are among my favorite parts of this series. I have neither the time nor the expertise to check the various corpora to find out which structure is used most frequently in spoken discourse and which in written discourse, or which of two expressions is used more frequently in academics, or which are the most commonly used noncount nouns, and so on. Now I can make informed decisions on what to emphasize in my teaching and testing based on information from this data. No more guess work.

Liu and Jiang (2009) call for a grammar teaching approach that is based on functional grammar, (i.e., grammar in discourse context with attention to form, meaning, and use of structures), considers lexical-grammatical patterns of structures and vocabulary, and integrates research from corpus linguistic analysis. Grammar and Beyond meets all three criteria in a user-friendly, colorful, attractive format. I am impressed with this series and would choose it over others for English for academic purposes programs.

References

Biber, D., Conrad, S, & Reppen, R. (1998). Corpus linguistics: Investigating language structure and use. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Byrd, P. (2001). Textbooks: Evaluation for selection and analysis for implementation. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed., pp. 415–427). Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Larsen-Freeman, D. (2003). Teaching language: From grammar to grammaring. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle.

Liu, D., & Jiang, P. (2009). Using a corpus-based lexicogrammatical approach to grammar instruction in EFL and ESL contexts. Modern Language Journal, 93, 61–78.

Richards, J. (2006). Communicative language teaching today. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.


Melinda Sayavedra has been teaching English language learners and teachers for more than 30 years in a variety of settings. Grammar is one of her favorite things to teach.