Running head: GRAMMAR TEXTBOOK REVIEW Reference Texts for ELLs: A Critical Grammar Textbook Review In looking at the

different options of grammar textbooks designed to be used with non-native speaker (NNS) students, I chose to examine Understanding and Using English Grammar: Fourth Edition, by Betty S. Azar and Stacy A. Hagen. I wanted to critically review this text because it is a widely used resource for academic grammar instruction, and I was curious to investigate the reasons for its prevalence in the field. I have spoken to NNS students studying English grammar in the United States, and many especially those from Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia or Kuwait have used Azar and Hagen grammar textbooks and workbooks for their studies in their home countries. More importantly, this book in particular is the intermediate text in a series of those used at INTO CSU, Colorado State Universitys Intensive English Program. I am specifically interested in the texts used for the grammar curriculum within the Academic English Program at INTO the AEP because I was granted an internship teaching lowintermediate grammar there. Despite my background in teaching, my previous appointments have been in high school language arts classrooms, so teaching at INTO is the sole experience Ive had putting my knowledge into practice in a classroom of NNSs of English. For these reasons, I am eager to familiarize myself with the chosen texts required by that institution. In order to evaluate this textbooks use and relevance, I will look closely at one specific chapter, determining its effectiveness based on some important criteria Ive learned to seek when selecting materials for my NNS students. Language learners need textbooks and workbooks that are accessible to them in terms of their vocabulary level, well-equipped to support and promote their advancement, and designed with

GRAMMAR TEXTBOOK REVIEW targeted practice options to master forms (such as the regular past tense verb

morpheme -ed) and structures (such as phrase placement within a sentence). Using the grammar curriculum currently implemented at INTO, I will gauge to what extent this text meets the needs of learners at the level it claims to be suited for, and I will decide how cogently it achieves this goal. In the event that I am ever in a position of choosing a textbook for a grammar class, my personal selection would require it to suit the curriculum of my institution in both vertical and horizontal alignment, as well as successfully target the level of learners served by that institution. I will determine whether or not this texts approach to teaching grammar adequately adheres to these stipulations, and I will refer to the activities included in terms of how well they support the instruction in the book. In addition, I will attempt to determine whether or not this text presents a cohesive and accurate explanation of the grammar structures being described. If there are any errors or lapses in accuracy, clarity, or usage, or controversial issues my students ought to be aware of, I will identify them and explain what differences I would like to see within the justification of each structure, within the included practice activities, or in how the book addresses those issues. Finally, I will look for additional information provided about native speaker (NS) preference, as opposed to prescriptive grammar rules, when there is a discrepancy. I deem it crucial to effective communication that NNS students be taught ways in which NSs essentially break the (prescriptive language) rules, so students are made aware that they will hear such uses, and so that they can speak English with intentionality in both formal and informal contexts.

GRAMMAR TEXTBOOK REVIEW Understanding and Using English Grammar claims to be designed for intermediate to advanced English language learners (Azar and Hagen, xi). It is set up like a workbook to be used during classroom instruction in ways that promote understanding of and practice with grammar structures, but it also serves as a reference guide for students to refer back to when learning and using these grammar structures. These claims are harmonious with the way this textbook is used in the AEP; two of the three texts in The Azar-Hagen Grammar Series (Azar and Hagen, xii) are implemented in the AEPs grammar curriculum. Grammar courses are taught at five different levels in the AEP (INTO CSU also offers general English not targeted toward academic use, and Pathways classes targeted toward specific purposes of English

use.) The lowest level, or Basic classes, use different textbooks entirely, but the other four levels of classes all require that the students buy and use an Azar and Hagen grammar text. Though I have taught Grammar 103, or low-intermediate level grammar, which uses the beginner level textbook, Basic English Grammar, I am reviewing the intermediate level text. Primarily, this is because Grammar 203, 303, and 403 all use this text, which means that the higher-intermediate and more advanced students enrolled at the AEP use this book. I am concerned with vertical alignment, and interested in the grammar structures taught at higher levels than the one Im most familiar with. Secondarily, this text is the one in the series which deals with coordinating conjunction, and that is the particular chapter I have chosen to analyze. In addition to a chapter on coordinating conjunctions, Understanding and Using English Grammar discusses verb tenses in depth not just simple past and simple present tense the way Basic English Grammar does, but also present and past tense with progressive aspect, and perfect and perfect progressive aspects as well. (They do

GRAMMAR TEXTBOOK REVIEW not refer to the perfect or the progressive as aspects; it may be confusing to involve

that type of meta-language with NNSs, and thus it is avoided.) They include future time, noting that there isnt so much a future tense in English, as there is a variety of ways to express the future. The text provides students with a simple diagram, like the two perpendicular axis of a graph, which is used throughout in order to show certain activities at various times, as they relate to the tense being discussed. The vertical line represents now, and the horizontal line moves from in the past (to the left of now) to in the future (to the right of now). For example, the diagram provided for students to review the simple past tense looks something like this:

Underneath this diagram is the sentence, Tom studied (emphasis in original) last night (Azar and Hagen, 2009, 6). The visual representation of the grammar structures, especially with the tenses and the aspects, which complicate the simple tenses, help to support the written input. This more intermediate text introduces modal verbs, stating that they generally express speakers attitudes (Azar and Hagen, 157). The chapter about gerunds and infinitives primarily distinguishes gerunds from verbs, offering several workbook exercises for students to determine if the word ending in ing is a verb or a gerund. The chapter also offers concise presentations of the rules, with a few examples, about verbs paired with gerunds and verbs paired with infinitives.

GRAMMAR TEXTBOOK REVIEW

Understanding and Using English Grammar additionally has chapters about noun clauses, adjectival clauses, and adverbial clauses. The text offers several examples of these structures initially, and asks students, what do you notice about their sentence placement and punctuation? (Azar and Hagen, 365), in an effort to get students thinking about the grammar structure. This is a good strategy for bottom-up learning, which means students see examples of the grammar structure used, and then try to figure out the rule from analyzing the authentic language samples. This chapter, like all of the chapters in this text, does present the rule(s) for the grammar structure, but the combination of an introduction to samples of the language followed by explicit statement of the rule is an interesting approach. It allows for learners who like inductive learning, or learning based on figuring out the rules from analyzing examples, to work well in a classroom alongside those who like deductive learning, or learning which begins with explicitly stated rules, and then uses examples to support the rules. With so much valuable information in a single text, it is clear why the AEP continues to employ its use across several class levels. The grammar class at INTO CSU which addresses coordinating conjunctions is the Grammar 303 class, or the highintermediate-level grammar class, and this chapter is introduced into the curriculum of that class about halfway through the normal 7-week term. Coordinating conjunctions are brought into the curriculum of grammar classes at each level, including the lowbeginner level classes. However, the coverage of coordinating conjunction in these other, lower-level classes is more cursory; it is done in such a way that it is integrated into the instruction for improving students writing fluency, sentence structure, etc., and it is less emphasized in these other level classes than it is in the high-intermediate sections, where coordinating conjunction is its own unit, spanning several days of classroom

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instruction time. I have not taught the high-intermediate grammar class, but I wanted to evaluate the textbooks presentation of cording conjunction as a grammar structure, so I took an appraising look at Chapter 16 in Understanding and Using English Grammar the chapter on Coordinating Conjunctions. One of the features I find helpful about the series of grammar textbooks by Betty Azar and Stacy Hagen is the fact that theyre color-coded. Each level textbook (beginner, intermediate, and advanced) has a different color cover red, black, or blue respectively, and inside each text, guiding information (such as chapter titles, headings, activity numbers, etc.) and important teaching information is presented in that books cover color. This is of particular value with the grammar boxes which appear throughout the text in order to emphasize a point or highlight a rule. The Azar and Hagen grammar books present the most important information, in summation, in colored boxes throughout each text. When a new grammar point is introduced, the information will be presented in a box on that page. This simple formatting choice makes finding rules and examples simple and straightforward. The information not contained inside the box makes up the exercises and suggestions for communicative practice of the rules presented in the boxes. Understanding and Using English Grammar uses a blue color for these boxes, as well as for headings, activity numbers, and the cover. Chapter 16 leads off with an exercise in which students have to determine the part of speech of two words or phrases connected with a conjunction. The words are highlighted in blue ink, and each word matches the part of speech of the other word joined by the conjunction. In other words, two noun phrases appear together with the connective and, two adjective

GRAMMAR TEXTBOOK REVIEW phrases appear with the connective and, two verb phrases appear with the

connective or , etc. This activity is followed by a Blue box; The first blue box in chapter sixteen, labeled 16-1, addresses this parallel structure, which was just presented inductively to students as an introduction to the concept (Azar and Hagen, 352). Box 16-1 reads, one use of a conjunction is to connect words or phrases that have the same grammatical function in a sentence (Azar and Hagen, 352). This is close-in-keeping with the description in Celce-Murcia & Larsen-Freemans The Grammar Book. The introduction to their chapter, Coordinating Conjunction states that, Conjunction, or coordination, is the process of combining two constituents of the same type (Celce-Murcia, 461; emphasis added). Still, The Grammar Book lists the following as conjunctions to be used in simple coordination: and, or, nor, so, but, yet, and for (Celce-Murcia, 464), while Azar and Hagens grammar book limits students initial exposure to coordinating conjunction in the text, only offering, The conjunctions used in this pattern are and, but, or, and nor (Azar and Hagen, 352, emphasis in original). Limiting the coordinating conjunctions initially presented in this chapter allows for students to understand and apply use and meaning of coordinating conjunction to their language knowledge, without being overwhelmed. I have observed multiple grammar classes, ranging across the curriculum at INTO CSU from basic-beginner level through the advanced 400 level, and while students work to learn the concepts taught at each level, I have been surprised to see that students in each class I observed all struggled with standard punctuation. For this reason, information and activities designed to review and promote previously taught structures are useful for students to revisit. In chapter 16 of Understanding and Using

GRAMMAR TEXTBOOK REVIEW English Grammar, box 16-2 describes how to apply correct punctuation with parallel structure. The initial rule states, No commas are used when and connects two parts of a parallel structure (Azar and Hagen, 354; emphasis in orginal). They provide the example, Steve and Joe are in class (Azar and Hagen, 354), stressing the point that it is incorrect to say, Steve, and Joe are in class (Azar and Hagen, 354). Next, they provide, Steve, Joe and Rita are in class (Azar and Hagen, 354), followed by the explanation that When and connects three or more parts of a parallel structure, a comma is used between the first items in the series( Azar and Hagen, 354; emphasis in original). One thing I really value in Azar and Hagens grammar texts is the occasional comment about use, included as a post script to the boxes. From my work with the basic level grammar textbook, the trend seems to be that when information is a bit

more advanced than the current lesson at hand, but still relevant to the material being presented in that lesson, there is a post script containing additional information. In this case, after the previous rule about where to place commas in lists of like words and phrases, the textbook adds, The purpose of punctuation is to make writing clear for readers. This chart and others in this chapter describe the usual use of commas in parallel structures. Sometimes commas are required according to convention (i.e., the expected use by educated language users). Sometimes use of commas is a stylistic choice made by the experienced writer (Azar and Hagen, 354). I find this additional information helpful in terms of giving students a basic rule which they can follow, but also noting that there is more to it than just that one simple rule. I especially appreciate the inclusion of this information in this context, because the use

GRAMMAR TEXTBOOK REVIEW (or omission) of the Oxford (or series) comma is debated, and it is useful for students to know about controversial usage issues they may experience. I would like to note that while the additional information is subsumed, there is no overt commentary about the fact that this particular usage issue is a controversial one. This merely reinforces the notion that the teacher must be familiar with these issues and the content of the textbook, in order to provide effective commentary to students about formal and informal usage. The second half of the chapter on coordinating conjunctions contains slightly more complex material than that provided at the start of the chapter. In this way the authors lay some groundwork for simple and typical use of conjunctions before elaborating on more difficult structures for using coordinators. Blue box 16-3 illustrates

the conjunction pairs: Both and; Not only but also; Either or; and Neither nor (Azar and Hagen, 358). These paired conjunctions are also called correlative conjunctions (Azar and Hagen, 358). The primary focus of this material and the subsequent practice exercises is on appropriate subject-verb agreement with the creation of these compound subjects. These types of complex constructions are wellplaced at the intermediate level, since they require students to build on the knowledge and understanding they already have of simple sentence structure and coordinating conjunction. The textbook accentuates the fact that when the subject of a sentence consists of two noun phrases joined by one of these conjunction pairs, the verb should agree in number with the subject noun closest to it. The example supplied is, Not only my mother but also my sister is here, compared with Not only my sister but also my parents are here (Azar and Hagen, 358; emphasis in original). Students are given several sentences with compound subjects and asked to identify the correct verb tense

GRAMMAR TEXTBOOK REVIEW to complete the sentence. This type of exercise will help students begin to notice the aspects of the words and sentences that govern the verb tense with these correlative conjunctions.

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I do perceive certain shortcomings in this textbook, but mostly I think its valuable and effective for its purpose. When Ive seen students learning and practicing this material, they appear to do well with the concepts and they ask great questions. I like the set-up of these Azar and Hagen grammar textbooks, especially the workbook-like approach to learning and using grammar in a classroom setting. The color-coding system is a unique and practical way to draw students attention to important or helpful information, and the structure of each chapter scaffolds material in such a way as to support students achievement. I can understand why the curriculum coordinators at the AEP choose to use this book, and I personally am content teaching English grammar using a textbook in this series as an instructional tool.

GRAMMAR TEXTBOOK REVIEW References

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Azar, B.S. & Hagen, S.A. (2009). Understanding and using English grammar (4th ed.). White Plains, NY: Pearson Education.

Celce-Murcia, M. & Larsen-Freeman, D. (1999). The grammar book: An ESL/EFL teachers course (2nd ed.). USA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers.