EASY ADVANCED GRAMMAR a gagné le prix INDEPENDENT CANADIAN PUBLISHER RESOURCE à la conférence TESL tenue à Niagara Falls en juin 2017.
Preface written by
Dr. Dianne Tyers, MA, MBA, PhD, FBEI
President & CEO
Advance Consulting for Education, Inc.
I am a huge fan of Easy Advanced Grammar, New Edition, from Quebec-based Canadian publisher Les Editions Shakespeare. The book is a practical, easy-to-use English grammar reference tool that is appropriate for a wide variety of users—from those training to be English language teachers, to advanced language students in school boards, colleges, universities and private language school programs.
The design of Easy Advanced Grammar is unique. A lot of thought went into every aspect of the structure of the book to make it easy to navigate. Each section, relating to a different element of English grammar, is colour-coded, with the coding explained in a chart on the back cover. Each section also has a different page width, with section titles written on the vertical sides of the pages, allowing users to easily flip from one section to another without having to check a table of contents.
Approximately the size of a tablet, and only a few millimetres thick, Easy Advanced Grammar is light and portable. Users can easily carry it in their laptop bags or backpacks, to have it on hand at all times. This is a grammar reference tool that gets used on a daily basis, rather than being stashed away on a book shelf to gather dust! And it is also affordable.
Focusing on how English structures are used in real life, Easy Advanced Grammar provides example sentences that are not tied to a particular regional or cultural context. This makes it relevant to users across Canada and internationally. Explanations are given significant visual support with tables, charts, pictures and diagrams illustrating how to construct the key structures and how they are used. The authors made strategic choices about which grammar structures to include, striking the right balance between simplicity and complexity, and frequent use and exceptions.
Having evaluated grammar reference tools and resources for almost three decades, I can say without hesitation that Easy Advanced Grammar is a reference book that teachers, advanced learners and language programs should have in their resource libraries.
EASY ADVANCED GRAMMAR is the third of a three-level series, coming after EASY ESSENTIAL GRAMMAR and EASY INTERMEDIATE GRAMMAR. Designed for second language learners who have acquired a basic understanding of English, it focuses on clearly presenting items that cause the most difficulty, such as prepositional expressions, complex sentence structure and verb tenses.
EASY ADVANCED GRAMMAR is divided into ten main parts: nouns (plurals), determiners, prepositions, adjectives and adverbs, pronouns, punctuation, sentence structure, verbs, question formation and capitalization. A glossary and an irregular verb chart are also included as well as lists of 90 idiomatic expressions, 50 phrasal verbs and numerous expressions (adjectives and nouns followed by prepositions, for example). Most of these points are presented in easy-to-consult charts containing examples (no fewer than 1500) that illustrate usage. A coloured-index and different codes are designed to help students loacte the needed item rapidly. Particular rules and special exceptions are explained below the corresponding charts.
In this innovative reference tool, we have selecetd the items of grammar that help students understand the relationship between the parts of a sentence, so they can avoid the ambiguities and misunderstandings which result from oral and written communication.
EASY ADVANCED EXERCISES is the third one of three educational tools serie. This one comes right after EASY ESSENTIAL EXERCISES, used by beginners and EASY INTERMEDIATE EXERCISES for learners who are a little bit more advanced. This resource is destined to those who are looking to consolidate and enrich their learning of the English grammar.
EASY ADVANCED EXERCISES contains a variety of activities to enhace oral and writing habilities. There are 167 exercises and their answer keys developed in 9 separate units: plural nouns, determiners, prepositions, adjectives and adverbs, pronouns, verbs, sentence structure, questions formation and punctuation.
The activities offered in this educational tool focus on the different types of mistakes to avoid in English as a second language. Although it relates to the theory presented in EASY ADVANCED GRAMMAR (winner of the Teaching Innovation Award at the TESL Conference, Niagara Falls, June 8, 2017), it also contains exercises to reactivate some prior knowledge.
EASY ADVANCED EXERCISES is a flexible learning tool. It eases the homework or school lesson planning. Once completed, it constitutes a bank of examples of notions and rules applications and can be used as a reference to keep for years.
Includes all answer keys.