Running head: GRAMMAR BOOK REVIEW 1

Grammar Book Review

Xiayu Guo

Colorado State University

GRAMMAR BOOK REVIEW 2

Introduction

I decided to review the grammar book, Grammar Explorer 2 from Paul Carne (2015),

because I want to be an English teacher in high school in China. I have chosen to review this

particular textbook because of its accessibility and format when presenting grammar points.

First, the teaching materials in grammatical units are interesting. Each lesson begins with the

explore section, featuring a captivating National Geographic article that introduces the target

grammar which builds knowledge in a variety disciplines (Carne, 2015, p. xi). Second, students

can practice grammar using all four skills through communicative activities. For instance, in the

Apply Section, students have the opportunity to use new language in grammar tasks (Carne,

2015, p. xiii). In this section, there are some situations in authentic life and students need to

choose correct expressions for each situation. Third, the book provides students with a clear

model and guided writing task in Connect the Grammar to Writing (Carne, 2015, p. xv). In what

follows, I discuss my specific evaluation of the textbook on comparatives, touching upon the

organization of the book, as well as the teaching approach being used.

As shown in Table 1, each unit has 2 to 4 lessons and includes the following sections:

National Geographic images, Explore, Learn, Practice and Apply grammar parts. After those,

there are additional sections: Review the Grammar and Connect the Grammar to Writing. The

National Geographic images introduce the unit theme. They are all topics in authentic life. In the

Explore section, students identify how to use target grammatical structures in readings and

academic textbooks. The Learn Section features clear grammar charts and explanations with

exercises. In the Practice section, all four skills are practiced by students in terms of target

grammar. The practices are communicative activities such as completing conversation in daily

life (cellphone conversations, conversation about trips, etc.). In the Apply section, students use
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Table 1

Contents of Grammar Explorer 2 Textbook

Unit Topic Lessons
1. Customs and The Present Simple Present: Statements and Questions
Traditions Present Progressive and Simple Present
2. Survival The Past Simple Past
Past Progressive and Simple Past
Past Time Clauses
Repeated Past Actions: Used To and Would
3. Health and Nouns Plural and Progressive Nouns; Another and Other
Fitness Count and Non-Count Nouns
Quantity and Measurement Words
4. Going Places Pronouns, Personal Pronouns and Possessive Articles
Prepositions Prepositions of Time, Place and Direction
and Articles Articles
Articles with Place Names
5. A Changing The Present Present Perfect: Statements and Questions
World Perfect Present Perfect with For and Since
Present Perfect and Simple Past
Present Perfect Progressive
6. Appearances Adjectives and Adjectives
and Behavior Adverbs Adverbs
7. Tomorrow The Future Future with Will and Be going to
and Beyond Using Present Forms to Express the Future
Comparison of Future Forms; Future Time Clauses
8. Consumer Comparatives Comparatives Adjectives and Adverbs
Society and Comparisons with (Not) As…As and Less
Superlatives Superlative Adjectives and Adverbs
9. The Natural Conjunctions Conjunctions
World and Adverb Adverb Clauses: Cause and Contrast
Clauses Adverb Clauses: Future Conditional
10. Work and Gerunds and Gerunds
Play Infinitives Infinitives; Infinitives and Gerunds
More Uses of Infinitives
11. People and Relative Subject Relative Clauses
Places Clauses Object Relative Clauses
Relative Clauses with Prepositions and with Whose
Ability: Past, Present and Future
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Unit Topic Lessons

12. Art and Modals: Part 1 Possibility and Logical Conclusion
Music Permission and Requests
13. Sports Modals: Part 2 Necessity and Prohibition
Advisability and Expectation
14. Innovations Verbs Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
Phrasal Verbs
15. Windows Passive Voice Passive Voice
on the Past and Participial Passive Voice with Modals; Using and By phrase
Adjectives Participial Adjectives
16. Exploration Noun Clauses Noun Clauses with That
and Reported Noun Clauses with Wh-Words and If/Whether
Speech Quoted and Reported Speech

new language skills. Students can consolidate the grammar in four skills in Review the Grammar

section. Connect the Grammar to Writing is a section which guides students to use grammar in

different writing genres.

The back of this book contains Appendices, a Glossary of Grammar Terms and an Index.

In Appendices, there are twelve categories: Spelling Rules for Verbs Ending in -s and -es;

Spelling Rules for Verbs Ending in -ing; Spelling Rules for Verbs Ending in -ed; Common

Irregular Noun Plurals; Spelling Rules for Adverbs Ending in -ly; Spelling Rules for

Comparative and Superlative Forms; Common Irregular Verbs; Patterns with Gerunds; Patterns

with Infinitives; Phrasal Verbs and Meanings; Guide to Pronunciation Symbols; Conversion

Charts. In the Glossary of Grammar Terms section, grammatical terms are explained with some

example sentences. The Index is a page reference for the book. The key words are organized

alphabetically in this category.

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Generally, the back matter is easy for students to use and helpful. However, The answer

key of grammar exercises is not included in the book. I think this is one of the weaknesses for

this book. The book contains many exercises in each unit; without an answer key, students

cannot correct the answers and improve their grammatical skill effectively.

Approaches to Teaching Grammar

In each unit in Grammar Explorer 2, one of the main teaching approaches are content-

based instruction. When the CBI is used in teaching, teachers help students understand authentic

texts. Teachers make meaning clear through the use of visuals and a lot of examples. Teachers

also design activities that address both language and content (Larsen-Freeman & Anderson,

2011). In this book, the first section is a passage in different academic disciplines. In the

passages, important grammar symbols are bolded. Students are required to do activities

according to the passages. Students have the opportunity to obtain knowledge in a variety of

academic topics; in this process, they can learn grammar as well. Another teaching approach the

book uses is the communicative approach. In Practice and Apply section, there are some

authentic materials adopted from daily life. For example, Use the words in parentheses to

complete the questions or answers. Use the present progressive, there are four conversations; the

conversation situations are purchasing plane ticket online, renting apartment, repairing computer

and answering a call. The grammar topic in this unit is present progressive, so students should

use present progressive to fill in the blanks. The conversation materials are very practical and

students can use them in real life.

Evaluation of Comparatives

In order to fully evaluate this book, I’m going to focus on one specific grammar in the

book: comparatives and superlatives. Comparatives is presented in lesson 1 in unit 8 and the
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name of this unit is Consumer Society. I’m using two criteria to evaluate this lesson: the way the

target grammar is explained and the types of the exercises after the lessons. Specifically, the

“way” means the clarity of grammar explanations. When students are exposed to a new

grammatical point, they need to be provided scaffolding of the target language. The activities

cannot be too hard for students. Meanwhile, the exercises and activities should be meaningful

and practical; it’s not good for students to practice for the sake of practice. When the grammar is

explained, the book should avoid using language that is too difficult to understand. In order to

help students use target grammatical structures, the activities must be communicative. Finally,

the book should provide clear examples and explanations of the target structures.

The unit on comparatives and superlatives is set in a passage about sociology. In Explore

section, students read a passage called Consumer Society (Carne, 2015, p.206). There are some

words in bold; all words are in comparative and superlative forms. These words include

monosyllabic and polysyllabic words. The comparative and superlative forms of these two kinds

of words are different. For example, in the passage, it can be found that better, more

comfortably, wider, more often, more easily than, bigger, smarter, newer, more advanced, more

seriously and more responsible are bolded. The rules of comparative adjectives and adverbs are

also concluded (Appendix A). In table 1, there are five rules for comparative adjectives. For the

rule 1, four examples are shown to illustrate that students can use comparative adjective+noun or

-er+than when the comparison is clear from the context; for rule 3, there are two examples to

illustrate that students should add more before adjectives that have two or more syllables. For

rule 2, 4 and 5, there are only sample words but not sentences. This table is systematic and

understandable.
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Under this table, I noticed a small space called Real English. The book introduces a little,

a lot, much, and not much in a square. This lesson includes this point and makes students pay

attention to it because it is obvious (they are written in bold). It’s very useful. In Chart 8.2, four

rules of comparative adverbs are presented, but only rule 1 has example sentences. After each

chart, students need to finish related exercises. For these 2 charts, some rules have example

sentences but some don’t. To fully explain these rules, they should all have example sentences.

Because a word is independent, nobody expresses ideas only by one word. If students want to

apply comparatives in life, they need to know how to use them to produce complete sentences.

The book explains how to complete comparisons such as using object/subject pronoun,

auxiliary verb, than and possessive noun (Appendix B). For every rule, there are corresponding

example sentences. Also, there are exercises for this chart. However, the exercises are not

practical and only designed for checking students’ understanding of grammar because the

requirement is changing adjectives to comparative degree. There is an example exercise: My new

oven works a lot ______ (good) my old oven. It heats up much _______ (quick). When students

are working on this, they don’t need to analyze the context. This lesson is about comparatives. If

they know the rules in chart 8.1, they can change the word forms quickly without context. In

Practice section, the activities are about daily life. For example, on page 211, there are two

activities. The first one is a conversation between Matt and Laura; the situation is repairing a

cellphone. This situation is very common in students’ life. Through this activity, students can

review and consolidate comparatives, and also understand how to express the potential problems

on their cellphones. The second one is a chart comparing three laptops and students should

complete the sentences with the comparative form of the adjectives and adverbs in parentheses.

Reading this situation can be useful for students visiting an electronic device store. Students can
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get to know expressions related to introducing computers. These two activities reflect the using

of communicative approach. The most obvious characteristic of communicative approach is that

almost everything is done with a communicative intent. Students use language through

communicative activities such as games, role-plays and problem-solving tasks (Larsen-Freeman

&Anderson, 2011, p.123). These activities are problem-solving tasks which are very common in

authentic life.

In this lesson, my favorite section is Apply. Students are required to do group work in the

Apply section. In this lesson, the situation is in task A (Carne, 2015, p.212): Imagine that you are

going on vacation soon. Brainstorm a list of vacation ideas, for example, a camping vacation, a

resort vacation. a safari, etc. Write your list of ideas in your notebook. In task B, students ought

to choose two vacation ideas from A to compare. They don’t need to write complete sentences.

This book gives an example chart in B. Students only write some features of two different

vacation activities. In task C, students write five sentences comparing two vacation choices

which appear in B. In task D, students choose one activity from C and write two or three

sentences to explain why they prefer it. In task E, they should share with partners. I find this

section useful because the tasks provide scaffolding for students. The tasks begin with an

individual noun (idea); then adjectives; next sentences; finally paragraph. If the first task is

writing comparative sentences or a paragraph, it may be a little hard to students because they

might have trouble completing the activity.

After the comparatives, there is a part about comparisons with (Not) As...As and Less.

This part begins with a conversation between a professor and a student. Exercises on page 214 to

215 are about As...As structure. There are three tips when using this structure with example

sentences (Appendix C). I think for students, rule 3 is important. Rule 3 illustrates the formal
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and informal speaking with as...as. The formal one is He’s as tall as I am, while the informal is

He’s as tall as me. At least for Chinese students, they always produce sentences like the informal

one. It’s necessary for a grammar book to clarify this important comparative use. Overall, the

exercise for this grammatical structure is the same as comparatives, but on page 218, there is an

error-correction exercise. Students should find the errors in three paragraphs; all the errors are

related to comparatives. Typically, the errors are omitting than, as and objectives including

nouns and pronouns. For example, there are sentences like Our last playhouse was much less

exciting the Jolly Roger and I still think this product should be less complicated than.

Next is a chart comparing three internet movie services. It is like the chart in electronic

device store activity. Students compare three services and finish sentences with the target

structures. In Apply section on page 219, students can compare two or three similar services or

products they used and develop the sentences with (not) as...as.

At the end of this unit, there are Review the Grammar and Connect Grammar to Writing

(Carne, 2015, p.227). Because this unit is composed by comparatives and superlatives, these two

parts are tasks about two lessons. Task 1 is Greendex survey. Students should complete the

sentences according to the information in the chart. The sentences are about transportation, food

and goods. After the sentences, students are required to write four or five sentences based on the

housing data from this chart by themselves. The book gives two example sentences. Next task is

an article about the results of the Greendex survey; students find and correct nine more errors

with comparatives and superlatives. This is also an error correction task that is similar to the task

on page 218. In Connect the Grammar to writing, there is a passage about the sleeping bag. The

passage compares different sleeping bags. After the passage, there is a focus on grammar. The

book summaries comparatives and superlatives in the passage. Students compare three sleeping
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bags in terms of cost, warmth and weight; then students need to choose a sleeping bag they

prefer and develop two paragraphs about it. In addition, there are some listening and speaking

tasks on page 229, but the CD-ROM isn’t included in the book. Students need the CD-Rom to

complete the listening activity.

This comparative lesson is combined with four skills very well. At the beginning of the

lesson, students do reading comprehension first. On page 207 after the Consumer Society

passage, there are two tasks which examines students’ understanding of passage: True or False

and Complete Missing words in Sentences. In general, students have opportunities to synthesize

four skills in this lesson. On the contrary, if all the contents in the lesson are grammar exercise

about comparatives, students might feel tedious in learning it.

However, there are some weaknesses in the lesson. First, as it was mentioned before, the

book doesn’t provide answer keys for grammar exercises and sample writings for the Apply

section. Definitely, some students want to learn grammar by themselves and they might choose

this book. The exercises and tasks are helpful and practical, but they don’t know correct answers.

Probably, they can find answers online or somewhere else, but I searched for answers but

nothing came up. Second, the rule in chart 8.1 on page 208, this book only indicates “some” two-

syllable adjectives are used with either -er and more, but it doesn’t explain what the “some”

means. Are there any specific rules or lists for these words? I think this part needs to be

explained clearer. According to Larsen-Freeman and Celca-Murcia (2016), these words include

two-syllable adjectives that (a) end in -er or -ure; (b) end in a weakly stressed vowel followed by

/d/ or /t/; (c) end in a weakly stressed syllable with final /m/ or /n/. Except quiet and simple on

the book, there are some other examples: tender, stupid, handsome, common. Third, for Chinese

students, less and fewer are always confuse them. These two words are comparative forms of
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little and few, and they are related to the nouns they modify. In Chinese, there are no

count/noncount nouns and rules for modifying nouns, so it’s not easy for students to decide

whether they need to use less or fewer in English. In this grammar book, there is no information

about these two words. Less and fewer are negative counterparts of more. Less changes to fewer

when modifying plural count nouns in formal contexts (Larsen-Freeman & Celce-Murcia, 2016,

p.771). In sentences, they can also modify nouns but not only adjectives and adverbs. Fourth, this

book only present the comparatives with more and -er, but sometimes other forms can be used to

express comparison. There are some examples (Larsen-Freeman & Celca-Murcia, 2016, p.776):

(1) Kate is tall for the girl.

(2) Gianni is tall compared to Raul.

(3) Dan’s height exceeds/surpasses Ryan’s.

(4) Andrea outplayed his opponents.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the content is understandable for students in intermediate level.

The unit of comparatives shows some weaknesses of Grammar Explorer 2. Some grammatical

rules are not explained adequately to students; the answers are not provided in the book so it’s

not very appropriate for students to study grammar by themselves. When a teacher uses this

book, it’s necessary for he/she to provide supplementary materials. In spite of these drawbacks,

Grammar Explorer 2 uses clear charts to present grammar and the tasks synthesize four skills.

Students can improve language in every aspect. Therefore, teachers have to consider advantages

and disadvantages before deciding to use this book.

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References

Larsen-Freeman, D., & Anderson, M. (2011). Techniques and principles in language teaching.

Oxford: OUP.

Carne, P. (2015). Grammar Explorer 2. Boston, MA: Heinle Cengage Learning.

Larsen-Freeman, D & Celce-Murcia, M. (2016). The Grammar Book: Form, Meaning, and Use

for English Language Learners (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle Centgage Learning.
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Appendix A

Comparative Adjectives

1. Use a comparative adjective+than to Lydia is taller than Alex.

conpare two people or things. You can Gorillas are more intelligent than cows.
use a comparative+noun when the The bigger house is mine.
comparison is clear from context The more interesting shows are on cable
TV.

2. Add -er to the end of most one-syllable small-smaller low-lower

adjectives to form the comparative. If the large-larger nice-nicer
adjective ends in -e, add-r.

3. Use more before most long adjectives Jack is more serious than Nikki.
(adjectives that have two or more Do you think math is more important
syllables) than music?

4. Some two-syllables adjectives are used quiet-quiter/more quiet

with either -er or more to form the simple-simpler/more simple
comparative.

5. Some adjectives have an irregular good-better bad-worse far-farther, further

comparative form.

Comparative Adverbs

1. Use a comparative adverb+than to Mark works harder than Jeff.

cpmpare two actions Carol drives more carefully than Peter.

2. Add -er to the end of one-syllable fast-faster hard-harder

adverbs to form the comparatives long-longer high-higher

3. Use more before adverbs that end with- quick-more quickly

ly. frequently-more frequently

4. Some adverbs have an irregular well-better far-father, further

comparative form. badly-worse
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Appendix B

The rules for completing comparison

1. You can use an object pronoun to complete Ed is 6 feet tall. Bob is taller than him.
a comparison, but in more formal speaking Ed is 6 feet tall. Bob is taller than he is.
and writing, use a subject pronoun and an
auxiliary verb.

2. Use an auxiliary verb after than. Do not Anna runs faster than Pat does.
repeat the main verb. Anna runs faster than Pat runs. (×)

3. A possessive noun or possessive pronoun My car is more expensive than Ellen's.

can be used after than. My car was more expensive than hers.

4. If the comparison is clear, than and the Nowadays, smart phones are cheaper.
second part of the comparison are not
necessary.

5. Be careful! Use than, not then in I work harder than I used to.
comparison. I work harder then I used to. (×)
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Appendix C

Comparison with As..As

1. Use as+adjective/adverb+as to complete 2 adjective: You car is as old as mine.

people, places or things that are the same or Adverb: I can run a mile as fast as you
equal in some way can.

2. To complete a comparison with as…as, you a. I dance as well as my brother

can use: (dances).
a. a noun+verb b. I dance as well as he dances/does.
b. a subject pronoun+verb or auxiliary verb c. My computer is as old as Rita's/hers.
c. a possessive noun or a possesive pronoun.

In informal speaking, object pronouns are Formal: He is as tall as I am.

often used to complete comparisons with Informal: He is as tall as me.
as…as