Description
Teachers of English need not only to have a good productive command of the language; they also need to know how the language works. This book asks: 'What is it that a teacher needs to know about English in order to teach it effectively?' It leads teachers to awareness of the language through a wide range of tasks which involve them in analysing English to discover its underlying system.
The 28 units start at phoneme level and progress through words, phrases and sentences on to complete texts. Task-types include recognition, categorisation, matching, explanation, and application tasks. Throughout the book, the language is illustrated wherever possible from authentic sources, so that the teacher can be sure that the English being studied represents current usage.
About Language can be used both by trainee teachers and experienced teachers. There is a full key and commentary, so that the book can be used for self-study.
Review 1
'I would have given my right arm for this book when I first entered the world of EFL. There are plenty of books that discuss what and how we should teach, and we seem to be swimming in books on grammar . What we don't have, however, are books designed to ease the novice teacher into the intimidating world of EFL 'grammarese'. About Language fills this gap. It is about the tools of our job: syllabuses, rules, functions, notions texts, phonology, morphology, sentences, grammar, cohesion, conversation and more.'
Review 2
For those involved in the teaching of English to speakers of other languages, this book is easily the most reader-friendly, comprehensive and balanced introduction to undertsanding a) how the English language works and b) the related pedagogical implications!
