Advanced Academic Grammar for ESL Students

Reviewed by Aylin Bunk, ESL and IECC Instructor, Mt. Hood Community College on 9/7/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

While this book is presented as a grammar book, it incorporates all four skills. In my opinion, it makes it more interesting than old-fashioned way of presenting grammar points and exercises. The book has three units with different themes. Each unit has two or three chapters that cover different grammar points with exercises. Chapters also have reading passages and listening activities (YouTube and TED videos). Some of the YouTube videos seem to have been created by the author herself, so they are to the point. Each unit ends with a unit summary with writing and editing activities. Students are also asked to create grammar reference cards. The table of contents provides a reference to all content. Audio transcripts and answer keys are at the end of the book.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

Content is accurate and not biased. I haven't seen anything culturally insensitive.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

Themes are current and interesting for adult students. The grammar points are relevant, and they are necessary for students to be successful in any academic environment. Common mistakes are all relevant. My students make the same mistakes in writing classes.

Clarity rating: 5

The language is clear. The difficulty of reading passages are appropriate for this level. Some videos may be hard to follow but transcripts will help students if needed.

Consistency rating: 5

The book flows well. Each unit and the chapter has the same organization. There are no surprises.

Modularity rating: 5

The book is organized very well. Subheadings make it easy to chunk it into different lessons. Depending on the lesson, listening or readings can be omitted or assigned as homework. I don't think there is a need to follow the order the book presents. You can easily use one unit and skip the other or change the order of them.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

Organization is very good. It starts with basic sentence structures and common mistakes and progressively presents harder grammar topics. That said instructors do not have to follow the same order if they don't want to.

Interface rating: 5

I used both PDF and Google docs. Links work well. Unit and chapter titles can be written in larger fonts or made to stand out a little bit more. I sometimes did not realize that I was reading a new unit or a chapter.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I did not notice any grammar mistakes or typos.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I didn't see any culturally insensitive topics or statements. Topics are relevant to all students. Unit 2- Resistance can be especially of interest to Arabic students. All other topics are appropriate in terms of tapping into all students' cultural backgrounds in class.

Comments

I found this book very useful. It is very well put together, and I can tell a lot of effort went into creating it. I can and will use all or parts of it in my advanced writing class.

Reviewed by Gretchen Starks-Martin, Professor Emerita, St. Cloud State University on 2/25/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

In my opinion, this textbook covers all of the common errors for an advanced grammar course. It could be used for a developmental English course in the community college as well as an ESL course. The text uses numerous ways of imparting instructional information: audio transcripts, answer keys, error logs, You-Tube videos, discussions and preview material for each instructional reading unit.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The topics chosen would be of interest to all cultures and are fact-based. They do not include biased material such as political issues.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

The reading topics used to teach grammar principles are fact-based and not likely to change for a period of time. The text is arranged in such a way that you could add links to other articles and internet links at a later date because of the CC and BY attribution.

Clarity rating: 5

The information in the sentences and in the readings did not include idioms and specific "westernized" adages. I may actually want to add Americanized idioms to some of the the activities in the chapters.

Consistency rating: 5

The text follows a consistent pattern. If the instructor were to add a grammar topic, ho or she would have a template to keep the same organization.

Modularity rating: 5

If the instructor administered a grammar diagnostic analysis, the text could be modified to pertain to an individual student by assigning specific chapters. This would also be helpful to individual student conferences or in special group settings.

The text was only 124 pages, which is not overwhelming for ESL students.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The organization is excellent and follows the same pattern for each chapter. The only thing that I may do is to conduct a readability index on each unit's reading to determine it it was at the appropriate level for my students. If not, another reading could be easily added since the topics are generic and fact-based. There are comprehension questions for each reading and if students consistently missed the correct answers, I would consider substituting a reading that was of a more appropriate reading level.

Interface rating: 5

I did not detect any interface issues. All of the links to You Tubes, ancillary articles, and quizzes worked for me.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

In that this was a grammar text, the author was extremely careful to make such there were no grammar or spelling errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

Although the topics were not necessarily cultural-based, it would be easy to add a reading unit to represent the cultural audience of the class or of the student. This could be added through the activities already included: You Tubes, discussions, videos, or Internet links.

Comments

Some of the parts of the text that I particularly liked were:
-reference cards that students could create for errors in their own grammar;
-discussion questions that did not preclude that the student had experience in the topic;
-TED ED videos;
-an organization of the book that would work for ZOOM courses, individual tutoring, student conferencing such as "circle" conferencing, and hybrid courses.
I LOVED THIS BOOK! I will use parts of it for an education course to train teachers.

Reviewed by Linda Seojung Park, Adjunct Faculty, Kirkwood Community College on 11/22/21

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

The table of contents provides a reference to elements (grammar presentation, listening, reading, etc.) in each chapter with page numbers. Each element on the table of contents is also linked to the corresponding page, so the reader can click on it to get to the page they want. The author also included audio transcripts and answer keys in the appendix at the end of the book.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

All the contents (videos, images, reading passages) are credited to their sources with hyperlinks.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

One of the biggest strengths of this textbook is the choice of grammar topics in each chapter. Instead of choosing common grammar elements (For example, noun clauses or modals in Focus on Grammar textbook), the author chose categories of common grammar mistakes advanced English language learners make in their writing. Chapter 1 covers fragments, and chapter 2 covers run-ons and comma splices, which are the most common grammar errors that I witness in my students’ writing.

Clarity rating: 5

Each exercise has easy-to-understand instructions, followed by the purpose of the exercise. For example, “Watch the video How to grow a glacier and build a basic understanding to prepare you for this chapter’s reading. Answer the questions to check your comprehension.”

Consistency rating: 5

Each chapter has the same framework: listening, reading, grammar presentation, and irregular verbs practice (except for Chapter 1, which has grammar presentation first) The color scheme and design of each element in the chapters are consistent, which makes it easy to look for the contents.

Modularity rating: 5

This text is very easy to divide into 30 minutes or 1-hour lessons. There are different types of activities in each chapter, and the teacher can choose to assign the activities (even including watching videos).

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The order of grammar topic presented makes sense, building on one another: dependent/independent clauses > types of sentences > fragments > run-ons and comma splices, etc.

Interface rating: 4

The text is pretty easy to look at and navigate. One suggestion I can offer is to start each chapter on a new page. It feels too packed because there is no empty space between chapters.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

There are no noticeable grammatical errors.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

Each chapter has a designated subject for reading material and videos. The subject varies throughout the book including earth science, social activism, and health. Unit 2 - Resistance features materials about Egyptian Revolution, which many Arabic students in the United States would relate.

Comments

I strongly recommend this textbook to teachers who teach advanced ESL students (Level 4 or 5 out of 5 level system). It is easy to navigate in both the Word document and PDF file. Students can choose the format they are more familiar with. The activities are quite comprehensive including reading, listening, and writing. Teachers can supplement the class with speaking drills as it fits their settings.