Teacher’s Library – English Grammar in Use – 21st Century English teacher

When we talk about science, for sure someone will bring up Darwin and his masterpiece “Evolution of Species” or Stephen Hawking “Brief History of time” into the discusson, as well as any English Literature teacher may utter some shakesperian quotes during his/her explanation about English Poetry, the point is: any subject has its classics, books that no matter how much time has been added to them they still have something to offer to our knwoledge. English Grammar in Use by Raymond Murphy is for sure a Classic when talking about English Language Teaching.

When Raymond Murphy saw – like many of us – the difficulties that many of his students had with the grammar content of courses he was teaching he decided to create worksheets that could be used outside class and self-accessed.

After a while these worksheets became popular by its content and clear explanations. Kept in school’s library, all students could get their copies and practice grammar outside class. Startled by the popularity of his worksheets among students, Raymond Murphy decided to publish them, put together all these worksheets in a book. Some editors refused, but Cambridge Press accepted. [1]

As the book was thought to be worksheets, for every topic there is: one page of explanation and one page of exercises in order to sharp student’s accuracy and fix the concepts.

The didactical approach of this compilation of so well explained worksheets was so huge that English Grammar in Use has already sold more than 15 milion copies!

After a time Cambridge Press adopted the idea of producing other books with the same structure about different subjects: Vocabulary in Use, Idioms in Use, Pronunciation in Use. The in Use‘s became a ‘must have’ for any teacher who wants to sharp his/her Knowledge about the given ELT area and also a rich resource for Structure and Form exercises.

Every now and then, Murphy still redits the serie, some language that has changed since its first edition in 1985 or new graphic adaptations, however, the biggest updates are made in the technological way, at first the book could come with a CD for students, during late 90’s they started with the CD-ROM pack, now you can even download Grammar in Use as an app!

Why should I Read/Buy this book?

It provides clear examples about grammar which you could use in class.
It’s a good Grammar resource in order to work out student’s structure, form and accuracy.
It’s self-accessed, so you can spare time with correction and focus on urgent questions.
It’s possible to be used as a supplementary activity book in class.
The serie offers levels since Elementary until Advanced, thus you may have resources for all levels, even on multilevel groups.

Text by: Lucas Anselmo

Sources: