Preface
The Communicative Approach is the only teaching approach for TEFL advocated by the education authorities in Taiwan. Textbooks have been written according to the tenets of language learning as claimed by this approach. For many years, teachers and students alike have wanted to have a communicative English grammar book both for classes and for reference. This book, A Concise Communicative Grammar of English for EFL Students, is written in answer to such needs.
In the writing process, we have made this book comprehensive and concise-comprehensive in the sense that all the basic structures of English grammar and some basic issues in rhetoric are included; concise in the sense that grammar points are described and explained in a way that is simple, direct, and to the point.
Our efforts in this regard have resulted in the inclusion of the following features in this book:
1. Concise introduction to the basic structures of English Grammar
2. Basic issues in rhetoric such as writing grammatically, writing clearly, and writing coherently/smoothly
3. Each unit introduced by a contextual picture illustrating in a vivid and humorous way the actual use of the particular grammar point of the unit
4. Each unit accompanied by communicative teaching activities
5. Sub-unit exercises
It is our goal that this grammar book will serve EFL students in their learning of English, particularly those at the intermediate level of proficiency. The book is also designed in such a way that EFL teachers will find that it is a communicative grammar textbook which will enable their students to learn and use English by doing things with and through English with appropriate grammatical structures. We hope that both teachers and students find this book helpful in these respects.
Tse & Chen Taipei, Taiwan January 2009
