English Grammar Pedagogy

Designed for ESL and ELT pedagogy courses around the world, this text describes English grammar from a World Englishes perspective. It is distinguished by its focus on the social setting for English as a global language, the latest thinking about grammatical theory, and new theories of how first and second languages are learned and taught. The fundamental premise is that teaching and learning grammar cannot be isolated from the local, regional, and global sociocultural contexts in which the teaching and learning take place. Part I presents different attitudes toward English as a global language and some challenges that learners of English share no matter where they are in the world. Part II is about the features of English that educated speakers consider the most likely and probable in Academic English. Part III describes the flexible and fluid features of English that might be susceptible to change or modification over time. Each chapter includes engaging Study, Discussion, and Essay Questions and Activities.

Barbara M. Birch is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at California State University, Fresno.

Preface Acknowledgements Part I. Global Trends in English Grammar Pedagogy 1. Global Perspectives on English 2. New Trends in Grammatical Theory 3. New Trends in Second Language Acquisition 4. New Trends in Post-method Grammar Pedagogy Part II. Consensus Grammatical Features 5. Morphemes 6. Words 7. Major Phrases 8. Noun Phrases 9. Modifiers 10. Verbal Constructions 11. Sentences 12. Complex Sentences 13. Discourse Part III. Unstable Grammatical Features 14. Unstable System Elements 15. Collocations and the Idiomatic Paradox