Focus on Grammar, A BASIC Course for Reference and Practice, Second Edition

The book was better than I expected, I was lucky to get the right one because they did not show the picture and they should.

I am writing about the 2000 edition: This series and text is good overall but considering this is the 2nd or 3rd edition, I am disappointed that there are so many mistakes between the questions, correct answers and answer key. It's hard enough for people to learn English as it is without them beating their heads trying to find why an answer is such-and-such only to learn that the given answer is wrong or that the question itself doesn't give all needed information.

Well, what more can I say. I teach English in Mexico and bought this book here. It's a bit more expensive here, but it was well worth the wait. In addition to the book, I bought the workbook, the teacher's manual and the cassettes. The level of the book itself is about 4th to 7th grade. It is a very impressive book and intend on buying the newest series, when or if they become available. I would recommend this series to anyone who would be interested in teaching ESL or EFL.

This series provides well-designed grammar books in real Communicative-language-teaching approach. This course book has both clear and user-friendly grammar reference and a lot of interesting skill-building practices. It helps learners to practice grammar in controlled exercises and communicative tasks. The tasks are similar to what learners may encounters in real life, and some of them require oral negotiation during the problem-solving process. Thus, this material help learners to use English in carrying out tasks in real life. Unlike traditional structural-based and drill-focused grammar books, this material allows learners to practice and use grammar in a social context, so it is very suitable for EFL or ESL classrooms, but not for individual learning. The outstanding features of this grammar series are as follows: 1. The methodological emphasis on retrospective approach to grammar. For example, learners encounter the focused grammar structure (usually highlighted) in a reading passage or a dialogue in the first section. Then, they will read the explanation of that grammar usage in the second section. Examples are always included in the explanation, so it is easy to understand and remeber the grammar usage. 2. Instruction-friendly design: model dialogues or passage, explicit explanation of grammar, and ready-for-use tasks are provided 3.A good grammar companion to any other course book: units are arranged according to grammar categories, so learners can practice what they need. 4.Well-designed and interesting skill-building exercises. Some are task-based exercises and allow learners to practice grammar in real communication. 5. Focus on content. Wide-range of interesting subject matters in the presentation and practices. Usually, all ofthe exercises/tasks within one unit deal with the same grammar structure (e.g. passive voices)through the same content topic (e.g.naming) Sometimes, the topics of several units are related when these units deal with related grammar structures.