How To Write Grammar Presentations And Practice

How To Write Grammar Presentations And Practice

Inductive or deductive? Theoretical, descriptive or prescriptive? Comprehensible input or pedagogical grammar? Graham Burton and Diane Hall explain the basic differences between these terms and delve more deeply into the approach favoured by most coursebooks. This practical guide walks you through the most suitable approaches for different learning scenarios and examines what constitutes best practice for writing grammar presentations and practice materials.

This book provides:

  • a theoretical overview of grammar and the different positions taken by ‘grammar experts’ on its role in language learning.
  • an exploration of the factors you need to consider when deciding what approach to take.
  • descriptions of numerous resources that the grammar writer needs to refer to.
  • detailed checklists covering the characteristics of good grammar presentations and practice, and different activity types to explain form and use.
  • practical tips for writing rules, explanations and rubrics.
  • tasks that encourage you to test out what you’ve read and detailed commentaries that provide further hints and insights.

This book forms part of the ELT Teacher 2 Writer training course. The course is designed to help you write better ELT materials, either for publication, or simply to improve the quality of your self-produced classroom materials.


Diane Hall

Diane spent several years teaching English, mainly in the UK, before moving into ELT publishing. She worked mainly on adult and secondary materials, first as an editor and then as a publisher, for Thomas Nelson and Sons (later bought by Longman ELT). She went freelance in the early 90s, combining editorial work and writing ELT materials with some teaching. Over the years she has co-written a number of ELT publications, most notably Pacesetter (Oxford University Press), Total English/New Total English Elementary (Pearson) and MyGrammarLab (Pearson). Since 2008 Diane has also been working as a tutor in Linguistics/English Language for the Open University.

Diane Hall

Graham Burton

Graham has been involved in ELT since 2000, in a number of different roles, including teacher, teacher trainer, lecturer, materials writer and editor. He currently lives in northern Italy, and teaches at the faculty of Education at the University of Bozen-Bolzano. He has an MA and PhD in Applied Linguistics; the latter explored how the ‘tradition’ of pedagogical grammar for ELT evolved, and how it compares to empirical evidence on the use that learners make of grammar as they progress through competency levels.

Graham Burton

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