Why Grammar?
I Won't Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here's Why. Read this article from the Harvard Business Review Blog if you need more reasons to motivate yourself to study grammar. On the other hand, if like Prof. D'Agostino from the University of Queensland you think that "grammar is glamorous," take English Grammar and Style, a free online course offered through edX/Boston University. |
Explanations
Watch these Azar PowerPoint presentations and accompanying vocabulary worksheets to supplement the material we cover in Understanding and Using English Grammar. Watch these YouTube presentations from Grammar Bytes! to learn about nouns and verbs. These are parts of speech. Then learn the difference between the subject complement and the direct and indirect object. These are parts of a sentence. When you are finished watching, you should be ready for some very complex grammatical challenges -- like the dangling modifier. Plurals in English can be bedazzling. To untangle the mystery, listen to A brief history of plural s from TED Ed and watch the dictionary.com slideshow 7 puzzling plurals. Dictionary.com also offers some interesting articles on grammar: It's versus its | Should you say between you and I or between you and me? |
Exercises
The writing section of the SAT Skills Insight online tutorial is a great tool to prepare you for TOEFL since the grammar sections on both tests are very similar. The tutorial is organized by proficiency levels and skill types, which helps you understand how tests are designed and organized. Practice the major pitfalls of English grammar with these exercises from Grammar Bytes!: comma splices & fused sentences | fragments | irregular verbs | commas | parallel structure | misplaced & dangling modifiers | apostrophes | pronoun agreement | pronoun case | pronoun reference | subject-verb agreement | word choice English Grammar Quizzes: Test yourself on a variety of grammar points. Grammatical words in English typically get little attention in spoken language. Hence a lot of Knock Knock jokes are about them. Use this worksheet to study how grammatical words can get reduced in a conversation. |