Recently, I picked up a few English grammar books in a bookstore with the intention of improving my grammar. However, I found that those books were the usual boring way of learning a language. They started with nouns, describing what a noun is and the various form of nouns and e.t.c. I personally find that this kind of teaching method is extremely boring. Why do they tell me what is a predicate and a subject ? Why do they ask me to underline a clause, a phrase, a compound noun, a complex statement in a sentence? Why do they describe to me passive voice, active voice and asking me to identify which group the sentences belong to in their boring exercises?
I want them to tell me why I need to know those. What are the benefits of knowing those and how do I improve my grammar by knowing those. I don't want them to sound so academic as if they themselves don't know why they need to tell me those facts and that they just pass to me what they have learnt from their own boring educational systems. It sounds so academic like teaching history to those average sleepy students......'Class, on 23rd of October, 1917, the American troops in France fire their first shot in trench warfare'. Then in their examination paper, there is a multiple question asking when the first shot was fired by the American troops in France. The students memorise the exact date, answer the question and get 2 marks. So what !? So What if American fired their first shot on 23rd October? Even if they wanted to shoot on 29th December, why do I need to care?!
Surely there must be an interesting way of learning English grammar. Hence I would appreciate if anyone of you in this forum who ever read a good interesting English grammar book, would be kind enough to share with us here.
Thanks.