TOP Grammar Teacher’s book, Testbook, Answer Keys - Rachel Finnie, Carol Frain, David A. Hill, Karen Thomas 2010

Introduction to TOP Grammar

To the teacher

TOP Grammar is a reference book for learners of English which goes from level A1 to B2 of the Common European Framework and beyond. It covers all main grammatical areas and provides clear grammatical explanations with a variety of contextualised examples and practice exercises. Clarity and flexibility are key aspects of TOP Grammar. The book can be used either for individual study at home or in class to provide additional practice exercises for a course-book syllabus. It can also be used for PET and FCE exam preparation. The book can be consulted quickly and easily due to its clear and user-friendly format, and students should be encouraged to use it as autonomously as possible.

TOP Grammar consists of a Student’s Book, a CD-ROM and a Teacher’s Book.

• The Student’s Book

The Student’s Book is divided into 25 sections of differing lengths, each focusing on a specific grammatical theme (a tense, a part of speech, a syntactic form, etc) alongside a lexical theme (health, shopping and money, education, etc). Each section consists of easily-manageable units of two pages each - the language rules on the left hand side and the exercises on the right.

The language rules are presented in graded sequence. They start with the most basic standard form of a grammatical item, and then look at its communicative use in spoken and written language. Distinctions between various registers - formal, informal, colloquial - and the differences between British and American usage are presented and made clear through a variety of examples. Examples use easily recognisable communicative situations.

The exercises within each unit are graded from simple to more complex. Practice is provided through many different kinds of tasks such as gap-filling, choosing the correct form between two alternatives, reordering words, finding the mistake, matching the two parts of a sentence, etc. Students begin with an exercise based on a single grammar item and then deal with it in a more communicative context, such as completing a text, short dialogue, e-mail or letter.

NB Grammar points that are dealt with in one section and mentioned in other parts are cross­referenced throughout the book (i.e. see p. 284).

TOP Grammar focuses clearly and systematically on various key lexical areas. Each section of the book covers one lexical group. These words and expressions are used to contextualise the grammatical exercises for that particular section. This integration of key lexis and grammar allows students to expand their vocabulary knowledge while practising key grammar structures. Areas such as word formation, false friends and phrasal verbs are covered within the book, while specific vocabulary exercises for the PET and FCE exams can be found on the CD-ROM.

At the end of each section there is a two-page Review with revision exercises covering all the salient grammar and lexis from the previous units.

A detailed Appendix and an analytical Index can be found at the end of the book. The Appendix contains tables summarising modal verbs and the tense system, a phonetic table with exercises and other useful tables.

TOP Grammar also contains fourteen Exam Preparation sections with activities which use the format of the following PET and FCE papers: PET Reading Part 5, PET Writing Parts 1, 2 and 3, and FCE Use of English Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4. These activities focus on the grammar points presented in the preceding group of units and allow students to practise their exam skills while reviewing a particular lexical group. More exam preparation activities for PET and FCE are included on the CD-ROM.

TOP Grammar caters for a variety of learning styles: analytical students will benefit from clearly explained sets of rules aimed at making them feel more confident about using the language correctly; students who are more visual will be helped by the drawings, the photos and the tables; kinaesthetic learners will appreciate the hands-on approach offered by activities on the CD-ROM, and those with a prevalent auditory style can take advantage of the Pronunciation and Dictation sections also on the CD-ROM.

By using TOP Grammar, students will gradually develop their cognitive and organizational skills through the study of how a language system works. They will build up skills which will allow them to become more accurate in their oral and written production of English.

• The CD-ROM

TOP Grammar is accompanied by an interactive CD-ROM with 25 Reviews containing additional grammar exercises for all units of the book. The CD-ROM also contains PET, FCE, Dictation and Pronunciation sections. The PET and FCE sections further develop the lexical themes and grammar points required for these examinations. The Dictation section consists of short recorded texts for students to listen to and write. The texts focus on key grammar and lexis from a particular unit and give students valuable practice in reproducing an accurate audio text. The Pronunciation section focuses on key elements such as sentence stress, weak and strong forms, word recognition and what could be called ’the phonetics of grammar’: how to pronounce the -s of the plural, -ed endings, etc.

• The Teacher’s Book

The Teacher’s Book contains tips on how TOP Grammar can be used in the class and for individual study. It also includes practical suggestions on how to develop grammar competence and how to deal with error correction.

A set of 25 Tests, one for each section of TOP Grammar, is provided together with a marking scheme. These Tests check students’ competences and verify their acquisition of the required structures before they progress to the next topic. They also identify any weak points and areas which may need additional work.

Keys to the Student’s Book and Tests exercises are included at the end of the Teacher’s Book.

TOP Grammar provides a means of helping students with different learning styles to develop grammar competence. To make the most of this book, we give the following suggestions for classroom activities that aim towards the acquisition of a better awareness of how to use the language and an improvement in the level of written and oral accuracy.

Different strategies for different learning styles

• The traditional deductive method - examining linguistic structures through explaining grammatical rules, and then applying these in various types of exercises - is a method particularly suited to students who have an analytical-reflective style of learning, but it is not, of course, the only method.

• Tables, mind-maps, flow charts and summaries like the following one found in the book, can help students who have a visual non-verbal learning style. Teachers can ask the students to prepare diagrams for grammar points that are especially problematic, like the following diagram on the use of the future tense.

• Numerous pictures accompany the text, enabling the students to understand an example or contextualise an exercise. They help students who have a strong visual memory to remember not just a rule, but also the page it is on and how to find it again when they need to. In addition, the use of arrows, small diagrams of a structure, graphics and visual elements, facilitate learning for these students.

• All learners, but particularly those who have kinaesthetic and auditory styles of learning, should take advantage of the activities on the CD-ROM as much as possible, if only because using a different method (the computer instead of pen and paper) can make learning more enjoyable for some students. The dictations and pronunciation exercises on the CD-ROM may be particularly appreciated by students who are prevalently auditory learners.

• Reinforcing a particular lexical area at the same time as acquiring grammatical structures is another strategy used in the book to make the most of practice. Teachers can ask their students to make spidergrams, i.e. tables with a lexical content, in each section of Top Grammar. This type of exercise is especially beneficial for those taking PET and FCE exams. The following examples contain vocabulary from Units 34-37 on the theme of “Jobs”, and vocabulary found in Units 38-40 on the theme of “Health”.

• Thinking about the different linguistic functions of a grammar point, or conversely, about how many different grammatical ways a particular function can be expressed, is a useful activity that can help students understand the communicative aspects of grammar. The CD- ROM, in particular, contains exercises related to these aspects, and in addition, you can find useful material in the book such as the table below.

Modals and other verbs related to communicative functions

Teaching tips for using TOP Grammar

• Oral activities and drills that use repetition but which have a precise communicative aim because of an information gap, can be used in the classroom to consolidate a structure. This type of activity is particularly suited to those students with an auditory style of learning or the so-called ’rote learners’, who find learning through repetition easier. Here is an example:

Making up stories

The teacher starts telling a story, using only a couple of sentences to set the scene. Then the teacher stops and waits for the students to ask questions before he / she continues with the story. The teacher answers the questions only if they have been asked correctly. If the question is incorrect, the student can get help from other students in the class to say it correctly. From time to time, one student can summarise what has already been said. For example:

Teacher: It was a hot sunny morning and a young man was hurrying to the town centre.

Student 1: Was he late for work?

Teacher: No, he wasn’t.

Student 2: What’s his name?

Teacher: Daniel.

Student 3: So, a young man called Daniel was hurrying to the town centre. What town was it? Depending on the level of the class and the objectives of the lesson, several variations of this activity are possible:

- the students can only ask Yes/No questions, only ask Wh- questions, or both. In the first case, the Total Physical Response approach could be used: the teacher answers only Yes or No by nodding if the question has been asked correctly, or giving a thumbs down if the question is incorrect. Another variation that would introduce a novel element into the classroom might involve the teacher having their back to the class. *

- the story, narrated in the tense that is being practised, can be written or thought out in advance by the teacher, or can be created on the spot, using the ideas generated by the class.

- the students can prepare the questions on their own, only getting help when the question is wrong, or they can work in pairs or small groups. However, it is important that each student asks a certain number of questions. A good way to make sure that everyone gets a chance to speak, especially when classes are large, is to use “talking chips”, which are spent when a question is asked. These could be simple pieces of paper with the student’s name, a colour or identifying image, and they can be used in two ways. Each student has a certain number of “talking chips”, and when they have used them all, they can’t ask you any more questions but can suggest questions to a companion who still has some chips left. Or, each student has an unlimited number of chips, and at the end of the game, it will be possible to see how much each student has participated in the task, which in this case, is the development of the story.

- the story could be by a famous author, in which case the activity could be used as a warm-up prior to reading.

* Back to Class is an experimental activity used in a workshop conducted by Professor Paul Radley, but it is highly likely that it was originally thought up by Mario Rinvolucri. Various versions come from Karen Thomas’s experiences as a teacher and teacher trainer.

Teaching tips for using TOP Grammar

• Practical activities are especially useful for students who have a bias towards a kinaesthetic style of learning; for example word puzzles, pieces of paper with words that make up sentences, matching, games like “Snakes and Ladders” based on grammar rules. Here are some examples:

Puzzles

Divide the class into pairs or small groups. Give each group an envelope containing the words to make two or three sentences. Include pieces of paper with punctuation marks.

Each group can have the same sentences or different ones. If the answers are not obvious and the sentences can be formed in different ways, the group then has the chance to discuss and use their own grammar skills. At the end, a spokesperson for each group reads out the sentences they have made.

Mario Rinvolucri, during one of his workshops on multiple intelligences, came up with an interesting version of this activity for kinaesthetic learners. Each student in the class IS a word, suffix or punctuation mark. The teacher says a sentence and the students involved position themselves in such as way as to form the sentence correctly and show it to the class.

Snakes and Ladders

Divide the class into groups of four. Each group has a Snakes and Ladders board, a dice, four counters and a bag containing strips of paper. Each strip has a question on a grammar rule. When a student lands on a square with a snake, they have to take one of the strips of paper and answer the grammar question on it. If the answer is correct, they can throw the dice again; if it is wrong, they miss a turn.

Example: 23. There’s a snake. ’Ask your partner two questions about yesterday.’ Did you go to school yesterday? Did you have dinner at home?

The students can make the boards and questions.

• Last but not least, it is a good idea to get the students used to using a dictionary, whether it is bilingual or monolingual, not only to look up vocabulary, but also to resolve grammar queries. If they are not sure how to construct a verb or an irregular form, they can find out by using a grammar book via the index, or a dictionary via the contents page.

Teaching tips for using TOP Grammar

Activities to consolidate grammar competence

• It’s all in a song!

Finding examples of a certain structure in song titles or lyrics can be be a stimulating activity for all students. Young people live surrounded by music, with their MP3s or iPods permanently attached to their ears, and the songs they listen to are mostly in English and sung in a variety of accents. The teacher can ask the students to carry out their search by listening to their favourite songs, without looking at the written lyrics. Of course, the written form of the songs can also be used in class to study a particular structure or tense.

Here are some examples of song titles.

With the present perfect: It is you I have loved all along (Dana Glover)

With an indefinite pronoun: Start of something new (from High School Musical)

With the future will:  I will always love you (Whitney Houston)

With the superlative:  The best day of my life (Jesse McCartney)

With the infinitive of purpose: Four minutes to save the world (Madonna)

With the imperative:  Don’t worry, be happy (Bobby McFerrin)

And here are some examples of sentences taken from songs.

With the present continuous: I’m walking away, from the troubles in my life ...

(Craig David, Walking away)

With the past simple: One day when I came home at lunchtime / I heard a funny noise / went out to the backyard ... (Jonas Brothers, Year 3000) In the land where I was born / lived a man who sailed the sea / and he told us of his life ... (The Beatles, Yellow Submarine)

With adverbs ending in —ly: I’m absolutely, positively certain that I’m not sure that I love you anymore. (Anastacia, Absolutely Positively)

With adjectives ending in —less: Now I’m speechless ... / Hopeless, breathless, baby can’t you see. (Jonas Brothers, Love Bug)

With pronouns one/ones: Let’s hope it’s a good one ... / for rich and the poor ones ...

(John Lennon, Happy Christmas) I’m dreaming of a white Christmas, like all the ones I used to know ... (White Christmas)

With used to: Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be ... (The Beatles, Yesterday)

• Memorable sentences

Another stimulating activity is the collection of ’memorable sentences’ from films, literature, songs or other sources, that exemplify particular linguistic structures. These memorable sentences can be written on posters in the classroom and new sentences can be added when they are found. For example: ’Th ere is no friend as loyal as a book’ (Ernest Hemingway) is a good example of the comparative.

• Make it your own: personalisation exercises

The teacher can ask the students to write examples or short personalised texts based on their own true life experience, which contain grammar elements that they want to consolidate, e.g. ’Write a sentence which is true for you using the present perfect continuous’. Or: ’Write a paragraph about what you are doing next Sunday using ’going to ...’ or the present continuous’.

• Student-generated activities

Students can take a step closer to internalising rules by creating exercises or short texts for their classmates, perhaps those in the year below them, covering grammar points that they know well. Knowing how to produce ’on your own’ an exercise for others means you understand how to use a structure and are able to actively elaborate on it. An activity of this type, possibly done in a group, can be very gratifying. From passively just doing the exercise, the student is transformed into the author of new material, using vocabulary and situations related to their own context, and this results in greater interest for those who participate in the activity.

Reading to consolidate grammar

Anyone who has learnt a foreign language knows that, in order to internalise the use of structures, it is important to do a lot of reading, preferably of texts which are interesting and meaningful. It is therefore advisable to choose, whenever possible, authentic texts - newspaper or magazine articles or extracts from contemporary, literary works, which are written in the language used today. As well as the lexical aspect, this also helps consolidate grammar already known on a theoretical level, such as identifying different grammatical items, thinking about reasons for the choice of tense, modals, etc. Here are some examples of texts with grammatical tasks, which also serve as a guide to understanding the text overall. These kinds of activities can be used with individuals or small groups.

1 Text type: informative-factual, news reports

Task

a. Read the text and underline the verbs in the present perfect. How many are there?

b. One of these verbs has a passive construction. Which one?

c. How would you translate this sentence?

d. Why do you think the present perfect has been used?

Follow this with an open class discussion to pick out certain points, for example: the effects of the typhoons are still with us; we do not know exactly when it happened, if they are recent events, etc. Of course, the lexical theme ’Extreme Weather’ can also be discussed.

Caribbean: Fierce Weather

Four storms in as many weeks have battered the Caribbean, spurring repeated mass evacuations and a climbing death toll. In Haiti, where areas of most of the nation’s provinces are underwater, the storms have left an estimated 1,000 people dead and millions without food, water and shelter. In Cuba few deaths have been reported, but 2.6 million people — a quarter of the nation’s population — sought refuge from Ike. Cuba’s government has predicted damage in the billions of dollars.

(Time, Sept. 22, 2008)

Teaching tips for using TOP Grammar

2 Text type: informative-factual (scientific)

Task

a. Read the text and highlight a comparative and superlative adjective.

b. What tense has been used in the first sentence? Why has this tense been used?

c. Highlight a modal verb (line 8).

d. Why has the journalist chosen this modal verb?

a) it is a certain fact

b) it is a probable fact

e. In the second paragraph, circle another verbal expression which has a similar function to the modal verb.

Arctic in retreat

Climate change is changing all the rules in the Arctic. The polar ice-cap is smaller by some 1.8 million square kilometres than it was in the two decades before 2000. The annual melting of northern ice this year may well surpass last year’s — the furthest retreat of Arctic ice in a single year since it was first measured.

The Northwest Passage — the route through the Arctic Ocean at the northern edge of the American continent — is likely to be open and navigable again before summer’s end for the second time in two years.

(The New York Times, Sept. 15, 2008)

3 Text type: narrative (extract from a contemporary novel)

Task

a. Read the text and underline the verbs used in the narrative. What is this tense called?

b. At the end of line 5, in he’d hidden, is ’d the contraction for:

a) would

b) had?

What is this tense called? Why has it been used here?

c. Underline three verbs which use the -ing form. Do they function as:

a) nouns

b) present participles, substituting a relative clause?

d. Find a relative clause. What is the pronoun? Does it refer to a person or a thing? Is it a defining or non-defining relative?

Bruno Makes a Discovery

One afternoon, when Bruno came home from school, he was surprised to find Maria, the family’s maid — who always kept her head bowed and never looked up from the carpet — standing in his bedroom, pulling all his belongings out of the wardrobe and packing them in four large wooden crates, even the things he’d hidden at the back that belonged to him and were nobody else’s business.

’What are you doing?’ he asked in as polite a tone as he could muster...

(John Boyne, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, David Fickling Books, 2006)

Teaching tips for using TOP Grammar

Analysing errors

TOP Grammar is a useful tool particularly for students who wish to clarify areas of grammar where they often make mistakes. Each student will tend to have their own ’range’ of personal mistakes, which the teacher will point out when correcting written or oral exercises. This is an important starting point. If the teacher lets the student correct themselves, pointing out to them only the type of error that has been made, it is more likely that they won’t make the same mistake again. This is why using a correction code, based on a checklist agreed with the students, can be useful when correcting pieces that are in draft form.

There are numerous ’Find and correct the errors’ exercises, or ’Tick the correct sentences’ in the book to get the students used to noticing mistakes. Examples of both types of exercises can be found on page 67 (exercise 22.4) and page 73 (exercise 23.4). It may also be interesting to compile a chart with sentences containing memorable or humorous mistakes made by students.

Here is an example of a correction system for teachers and students that can be used to correct errors in both grammar exercises and in pieces of writing, especially during the draft phase of a written piece. The teacher or classmate acts as ’editor’ to point out the type of error, without correcting it.

Correction Code

w.w. k wrong word

w.f. k wrong form

sp. k spelling

w.o. k word order

conc. k concord

pun. k punctuation

v.t. k verb tense

V k something missing

X k not necessary, eliminate

?? k I don’t understand

This Correction Code, or something similar, should be in the student’s exercise book,with personalised examples and highlighting the most commonly made mistakes. The process is one of constant editing. All the operations listed develop meta-cognitive strategies and help the students form a solid linguistic ability.

Teaching tips for using TOP Grammar

Bibliography

Gunter Gerngross, Herbert Puchta, Scott Thornbury, Teaching Grammar

Creatively, Helbling Languages 2006

Herbert Puchta, Mario Rinvolucri, Multiple Intelligences in EFL, Helbling

Languages 2005

Sheelagh Deller, Mario Rinvolucri, Using the Mother Tongue — Making the most of the learner’s language, Delta Publishing, 2002

Daniela Villani, ’Summer Workbook Project: A Purposeful Way to Exploit Student-Generated Activities’, in English Teaching Forum, vol. 33, No.1, January 1995

Christine Frank, Mario Rinvolucri, Grammar in Action, Pergamon Press 1983

Ann Raimes, Techniques in Teaching Writing, Oxford American English 1983