📙 Part 2: Describe a book you read that you found useful

This episode's vocabulary

A reference book (noun)- a book of facts, such as a dictionary or an encyclopedia, that you look at to discover particular information.

Creep in (phrasal verb) - If mistakes creep in or creep into a piece of text, they are included despite efforts not to include them: A few mistakes always creep in during the editing process; to gradually start to be noticeable: Doubts began to creep into my mind about the likely success of the project.

In-depth (adj.) - done carefully and in great detail: an in-depth report/interview/analysis

A novice  (noun)- a person who is not experienced in a job or situation:

I've never driven a car before - I'm a complete novice.

Vital  (adj.) - necessary for the success or continued existence of something; extremely important.

Outline (verb) - to give the main facts about something: At the interview she outlined what I would be doing.

Determine (verb) - to control or influence something directly, or to decide what will happen: Your health is determined in part by what you eat.

Benefit from (verb) - to be helped by something or to help someone:

I feel that I have benefited greatly from her wisdom.

General public  (noun)- ordinary people, especially all the people who are not members of a particular organization or who do not have any special type of knowledge: This is a matter of great concern to the general public.

Sick to death of (idiom) – annoyed about or bored with (someone or something) and unwilling to put up with them any longer; totally disgusted with someone or something.

Questions and Answers

Maria: Rory will describe a book he read and he found useful, he'll say what the book is and what's it about, why he read it, when he read it, and he's going to say why he thinks it's useful. Could you start speaking now, please?

Rory: Yes. So, I have got to talk about "The English Verb", which is a book by someone called Michael Lewis. I think the best way to describe it is that it's a reference book for teachers about how English grammar works with particular references to verbs, I suppose, is the best way to talk about it. Although there are other pieces of grammar that creep in there. And I have to say it is the singularly most useful text I have read about teaching and understanding English grammar. It's completely changed the way I understood the topic and how I taught it up until that point. I think I read it in preparation for my Delta One exam, since you need to have an in-depth knowledge of grammar structures and functions to pass effectively. I also thought it would help improve my teaching, but that was sort of a side effect of the overall learning process.

This is about three or four years ago when I was a bit of a novice in terms of grammar teaching, so to say it was and remains a vital textbook would be completely understating things. The book outlines how tenses and aspects of grammar function and the role that the real world plays in determining the meaning of the structure that is focused on.

I think one of the most surprising things I learned was the English only actually has two tenses, which is how the verb changes to reflect the time. Everything else is an aspect, which is how the speaker interprets the context. This is really helpful since it helps simplify the process of grammar explanation for teachers, and I think it really calmes them down about how it works. The explanations given are equally clear and simple and effective. So to be honest, I think everybody would benefit from reading this book, not not just English teachers, but even members of the general public who are interested in how the English language functions. I think they'd be pleasantly surprised at just how easy it is to understand.

Maria: And what about your friends? Do they like this book?

Rory: I think my friends are sick to death of me talking about teaching English grammar.