An Interactive English Grammar is the first installment of an eLearning
work of much broader scope, Writing in English for the Workplace,
whose purpose is to help students acquire expository writing skills. Successive
modules will be added at regular intervals, to form a complete and interrelated
whole.
An Interactive English Grammar offers concise practical guidelines
and exercise materials on norms of English structure used in formal writing
and commonly followed in mass media, research, business and technical publications.
It uses a pragmatically prescriptive approach, in recognition of the essentially
speech-based character of modern expository prose and of the need for students
to get an ear for the often subtle differences between what is and is not
acceptable in writing. The grammar topics can be accessed in two ways: by
means of an Analytical Index of alphabetized entries using standard
grammar-book nomenclature (i.e., Adjectives, Nouns, Verbs, etc.), and by
means of a Unit Index, in which topics are arranged in associative
groups of learning tasks, such as Making comparisons, How adjectives
work, Subject and object, etc. The units are divided into four stages,
corresponding to the levels from waystage (A2) through effective operational
proficiency (C1) of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.
Although An Interactive Grammar was designed primarily to help students
acquire formal writing skills, it can also be used as a practical approach
to the study of English grammar in its own right.