Grammar Nonsense and What To Do about It

Book excerpt: Do you hate teaching some aspects of grammar? Do you ever feel frustrated that your students just don’t get it? Well, in Grammar Nonsense, Andrew Walkley and Hugh Dellar argue that you shouldn’t really blame yourself. The fault lies largely with the way grammar rules and methods have been passed down through training and published material and become established as the way of doing things: a straightjacket that we need to escape from. Through an entertaining series of rants and meditations on all things grammatical, from the use of the word grammar to the horror of teaching verb patterns, they aim to pull apart rules which we give without thinking and to question approaches to practice that are seen as a must. Along the way, you’ll not only learn how published materials get written and about ideas such as the transformation fallacy and grammar olives, but you’ll also get plenty of practical suggestions as to what to do about all this nonsense.