Introduction

          SYSTEMS IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR: AN INTRODUCTION FOR LANGUAGE TEACHERS is a 
textbook for students and teachers who want or need to understand the basic elements of 
English grammar. It is primarily designed to provide present and future teachers with a 
clear understanding of the manner in which the systems in English grammar operate, 
with step-by-step instructions and plenty of exercises to consolidate what has been 
learned.
	The guiding philosophy of the text is that students, especially the non-native 
speakers of English who account for a steadily increasing percentage of school 
populations at all levels, have the right at all times to ask their teachers why certain 
elements of grammar operate the way they do. When they ask such questions, they are 
entitled to a clear, unambiguous, and helpful explanation. For example, a student might 
ask, "Why do you use "do" in some questions and not in others? (e.g., "Where does he 
live?" vs. "Who lives here?"). Or a student might ask, "Why must I put an "s" on the 
verb by itself but not when it has "can" in front of it?" (e.g., "John speaks French." vs. 
"John can speak French."). Or a student might ask, "Why do I use "a" with an adjective by 
itself and "the" when the adjective has "most" in front of it?" (e.g., "Paris is a beautiful 
city in France." vs. "Paris is the most beautiful city in France.")
	The focus of this text is grammar at the sentence level. The field is now well 
aware that grammatical instruction has typically neglected the role of discourse and 
pragmatics. However, as David Little reminds us, although discoursal and pragmatic 
dimensions are important in grammar, they do not dislodge sentence grammar from its 
central position. The goal of the text is thus to show teachers how sentences are built 
from the ground up, for it is only with knowledge of basic sentence structure that we can 
describe how sentences are assembled into discourse and how certain sentences may be 
used formulaically in carrying out pragmatic functions (even though pragmatic 
structures, e.g., lexical phrases such as "I don't know", are thought to precede 
grammatical rules in language acquisition. Such knowledge is also required before 
teachers can begin to apply techniques for teaching grammar to nonnative speakers.
	The role of grammar has undergone considerable rethinking in recent years. We 
now believe that it is not good teaching practice to base a class on the teaching of 
grammatical patterns. We want to emphasize communication first, that is, the 
spontaneous use of the language rather than learning about the language. Thus, there is 
no reason to introduce a point of grammar simply because it has been listed in the school 
curriculum. That is not to say that there is no role for grammar in the modern 
classroom. On the contrary, the need is as great as ever, especially when it comes to 
developing editing skills. What we have finally realized is that grammar is a tool for 
expressing meaning and for this reason it can have no use until there is a need for it.
	What this means in the classroom is that the teacher, rather than having a 
preconceived idea of what elements of grammar her students need, watches for evidence 
of that need in classroom work. The need may become clear from a reading assignment, a 
composition, an oral presentation, or an argument that arises during a group task. As 
soon as the need is perceived, the teacher must be ready to provide just the right amount 
of explanation or practice to aid the student without overwhelming him or her with 
gratuitous information. This is where the art of teaching comes in, knowing how much is 
just the right amount. No textbook can tell you this.
	The purpose of this text is to explain the central systems that account for the 
most frequently occurring grammatical structures in the language from a strictly 
pedagogical point of view. It does not attempt to cover all the elements of grammar, nor 
is it designed to be an exhaustive reference book that details every exception. Instead, it 
aims to describe the most common structures in a systematic way without relying on 
trees or formal transformational rules or other arcane linguistic devices. Every 
explanation is clearly linked to one or more of the sentence slots, i.e., the four roles that 
together create an archetypal English sentence: the subject, the verb, the object, and the 
adverbial.
	The text is designed for teachers in general, especially those teaching in the 
public schools, as well as future teachers of English as a Second or Other Language 
(ESOL). Its purpose is not to provide engaging methods for the teaching of grammar but 
rather to provide a fundamental understanding of how grammar works so that a teacher 
is prepared to apply methods of presentation as well as provide pedagogically sound 
explanations, both in the classroom as questions spontaneously arise and in giving 
feedback on student compositions. To this end, the text utilizes a unique error correction 
process that requires identifying everything that is correct about the error before 
saying what is wrong. This process acknowledges that learning the details of grammatical 
structure is hard work and that students need to be encouraged to persist in their 
acquisition of language proficiency by receiving praise for partial correctness, thus 
promoting self esteem.
	At the same time, it is not the intent of this text to encourage teachers to find and 
treat every error that a student makes. Knowing when and how much to correct is also 
part of the art of language teaching. The intent is rather to equip the language teacher 
with the means to addressing questions as they arise. One consequence of such a study is 
greater self assurance in one's own writing, for one begins to understand the language as 
a system and thus not only that "it sounds better" (which is useless advice for all but the 
native speaker), but why it sounds better. It should also be noted that a teacher's 
incomplete knowledge of an aspect of this complex system is no crime, but it is a crime 
to provide an inadequate, confusing, or erroneous explanation. Students respect a teacher 
who says, "I need to check on that. I'll tell you tomorrow," and then comes the next day 
with a clear explanation. They will lose respect for a teacher who is obviously guessing 
at an explanation or one who promises to find an answer and then never mentions it 
again. Knowing grammar well takes many years of teaching practice, and every question 
from students provides an opportunity to enlarge one's knowledge of the system.

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[Updated 2-11-98]