Grammar in the Composition Classroom: Essays on Teaching ESL for College-Bound Students

* Whether language professionals teach university ESL writing and grammar, design curriculum, or act as a campus resource for other academic faculty needing help with international students in their classes, they should read Grammar in the Composition Classroom. This book is a no-nonsense, right-on resource that explains where the ESL professional must begin in rethinking and redesigning effective curricula for the ESL student who will soon be undertaking university credit courses. Reid emphasizes the need to determine who the learners are and how they learn best before determining what they should learn, shifting the focus away from learners' errors and toward the learners. Her description of the differences between immigrant L2 students and international students provide strong support for this approach. Byrd guides the reader through selecting appropriate grammar and putting it into the context of writing while keeping in mind the reading and writing tasks the students will encounter in their undergraduate and graduate disciplines. Teachers of advanced writing should pay particular attention to chapter 6. In it the authors present the special challenges of suasive verbs (e.g., agree, ask, urge), conditional and hypothetical sentences, and those ever-confounding modals. Their treatment of the underlying cultural factors that control the use of these grammatical forms provides insights for anyone dealing with the teaching or learning of English rhetoric. This information could be translated into curricula, classroom lessons, or faculty workshops to provide immediate help for teachers and learners alike.