Who at times doesn’t struggle with English grammar either as a teacher trying to explain when to use ‘in’ ‘on’ and ‘at’ or as a student attempting to use ‘had had’ in a real life situation? Occasionally, even English language teachers find it hard to explain which words to use; what word combination is correct; why the words have to be in a certain order; when do they need to be in that order and how to form correct sentences when there are so many rules and exceptions.
In one of my last posts, I wrote about a very simple and effective tip of assigning a colour to each tense or at least to the ones most commonly taught in the early stages of learning English and I’ll be posting more about effective ways to help students learn and remember grammar rules. In the meantime, I’ve come across an invaluable online grammar resource for ESL and EFL teachers and English language learners supplied by Cambridge that can help solve the many questions asked and save teachers and students lots of time and angst.
This Cambridge grammar resource is excellent. It was written and compiled by a team of top experts in the field and is based on the Cambridge English Corpus — a database of 1.5 billion words. It has over 500 topics and gives explicit explanations together with hundreds of easy to understand examples of how grammar is structured and used, as authentically as possible, in written and spoken English. It also provides valuable information on spelling rules, punctuation, word formation and more.
The information is laid out in well-spaced and easy to follow tables with bullet-pointed lists. Plus there’s a bonus: at the bottom of each page popular searches are listed so teachers and students can check what others are looking for in case they need that information too.
This grammar resource is a gift for teachers and students working and studying online. They can have this treasure chest of information open in their browsers for quick access to examples and explanations.
If you are a teacher or student needing a fast, reliable reference perhaps on some of the 100 or more prepositions in English and you want to be prepared for questions on the correct use of, ‘in’ or ‘on’ or ‘at’ — the Cambridge Dictionary Grammar is a great aid to supplement your teaching.
In addition, if you are interested in finding out more about how to quickly and easily recognise and help struggling language students, join other teachers and professionals and check out my free 26-page how-to-guidebook.
Copyright Lesley Lanir. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.
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