CONTENTS
Introduction
The Questions Our English Language Learners Have about English
What Do We Mean by “Correct” English Grammar?
Quiz: How Much ESL Grammar Do You Already Know?
1. Adjectives
1. Recognizing an Adjective
2. Order of Adjectives
3. Comparative and Superlative of Adjectives
4. boring vs. bored (–ing vs. –ed adjectives)
5. Compound Adjectives
2. Articles
6. a vs. an
7. Indefinite Articles (a, an) and Definite Article (the)
8. Using No Article for a Whole Category in General
10. the with Country Names
11. the with Geographic Areas
12. the with Bodies of Water
13. the with Schools
15. the with People’s Titles
3. Clauses
16. Adjective Clauses
17. Using that in Adjective Clauses
18. Adjective Clauses Modifying a Sentence
19. Extra Object Pronoun in Adjective Clauses
20. Embedded Questions/Noun Clauses
21. Reported Speech
22. Hypothetical if Clauses
23. will in if Clauses
4. Connectors
24. Beginning a Sentence with and
25. Punctuation of but, although, however
26. though
5. Gerunds & Infinitives
27. Gerunds
29. Verb + Infinitive
30. Infinitives and Gerunds after Certain Verbs
31. ask, tell, want and Similar Verbs
32. let, make, have, and help
6. Prepositions
33. at/on/in for Location
35. on + Days
36. in + Months
37. Prepositions after Certain Adjectives
38. in/on for Transportation
39. at/in with Schools and Hospitals
40. Prepositions after Verbs of Motion
41. in vs. into
42. in a group vs. on a team
7. Pronouns
43. Meanings of it
44. Differentiating Formal and Informal you
45. who vs. whom
46. I vs. me
8. Pronunciation
47. 3 Ways of Pronouncing –s
50. Pronouncing –ed as /ɪd/
51. Reductions such as wanna
52. Syllable Stress and Part of Speech
9. Subject-Verb Agreement
53. Subject-Verb Agreement: news is/news are
54. Intervening Prepositional Phrases
55. There is a lot vs. There are a lot
56. None is vs. None are
57. either . . . or and Other Correlative Conjunctions
58. Collective Nouns
10. Suffixes
59. Plural Nouns
60. Meanings of –ing at the End of a Word
61. Meanings of –s at the End of a Word
62. Meanings of –ed at the End of a Word
63. Meanings of –ly at the End of a Word
64. Doubling Final Consonants before Adding –ed or –ing
65. –er vs. –or: writer vs. author
11. Verbs
66. The Number of English Verb Tenses
67. The Most Frequent Verb Tenses in English
68. The Importance of the Verb Be
69. Negating Verbs
70. Question Formation with do
71. Recognizing an Irregular Verb in the Past Tense
72. Present Perfect Tense
73. Progressive Tenses with Non-Action Verbs
74. used to before Verbs
75. be going to vs. will
76. Modal Verbs
77. could in Affirmative Statements
78. Contractions with Short Affirmative Answers
79. Passive Voice
80. Phrasal Verbs
81. Verb Tense with Certain Idioms
82. Limitations of Present Progressive Tense
12. Vocabulary Meets Grammar
83. be vs. have
84. a few vs. a little
85. many, much, a lot of
86. make vs. do
87. say vs. tell
88. other, another, the other
89. too vs. very
90. for vs. since
91. maybe vs. may be
92. because vs. because of
93. Meanings of so
94. Meanings of like
95. never vs. ever
96. used to work vs. be used to working
97. shall vs. will
98. become vs. get
99. hundred vs. hundreds (of)
100. North American and British English
Appendix: Parts of Speech: Quick Reference Chart
Answers to Quiz: How Much ESL Grammar Do You Already Know
Glossary of Grammar Terms
References
Index