Using A Practical English Grammar 4th Edition When You Actually Need It
I picked this up years ago when a student kept confusing present perfect with past simple in their writing. I had tried everything else. The Thomson and Martinet book sat on my shelf for about two years before I actually opened it, and honestly it changed how I approach grammar explanations more than any methodology textbook ever has. The book itself is organized by grammatical structures rather than by difficulty level or topic theme. Each unit covers one grammar point with a clear explanation, model sentences, and controlled exercises. The format is consistent enough that you can flip to any section and immediately know what kind of practice is coming. This is not a book you read cover to cover. It is a reference manual you dip into when you need a specific answer or when your students consistently make the same mistake.
A Practical English Grammar 4th Edition By J Thomson And V Martinet
What makes this book different from something like Murphy's English Grammar in Use is that the explanations are slightly more detailed and the exercise sections are longer. Martinet was originally a French linguist who worked at the University of London, and the book carries that structuralist sensibility. The grammar is presented systematically with attention to form, meaning, and use. That triad matters because most learners and even some teachers focus almost entirely on form and completely neglect use. Here is a concrete example of how I actually use it. A few years back I was teaching a mixed-level class where half the students were struggling with quantifiers. I went to the section on quantifiers in this book and found that the explanation clearly distinguishes between count and non-count contexts for words like much, many, little, and few. I pulled three of the exercises directly from the book. The students worked through them in pairs and I walked around. By the end of the period most of them had stopped saying things like "many informations" or "much goods." The book does not do magic but it does save time that would otherwise be wasted on improvised explanations. One thing nobody really talks about is the organization of the units. The first part of the book handles nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The second part moves into clauses, phrases, and more complex structures. If you are trying to find something on reported speech or conditional sentences, you need to know which section you are looking for before you start flipping pages. The table of contents is functional but not exhaustive. I learned to keep the index open on my desk instead of relying on the contents page alone. That alone cut my search time from several minutes down to about thirty seconds.
Another counter-intuitive detail is how the book handles tense naming. It uses present simple, past continuous, and so on, but it also includes usage notes that challenge the way many textbooks present tenses as purely time-based concepts. For instance, the present continuous section explicitly addresses stative verbs and temporary situations, which is a distinction most beginners never encounter until they make the same mistake repeatedly. I have seen teachers explain this concept poorly for years because their coursebook treats tense as only about time. This book at least gives you the raw material to correct that misunderstanding. The exercises are where this book really earns its keep. They range from fill-in-the-blank items to transformation exercises and some open-ended practice. The transformation exercises are particularly useful because they force students to manipulate the structure rather than simply recognize the correct form. A student can guess the right answer on a multiple choice question without actually understanding the grammar point. Transformation exercises do not allow that kind of cheating. There are limitations worth mentioning plainly. The 4th edition came out in 1996 and some of the examples feel dated. References to things like telex and public call boxes will confuse younger learners if you do not update them. Also, the book does not include audio materials or answer keys for every exercise. You will need to work through the answers yourself or rely on the provided answer section at the back, which covers the main exercises but not all of them in full detail. This is not a self-study book in the way that Murphy's is. It is a teacher's resource more than anything else.
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Another practical issue is that the explanations assume you already know basic grammatical terminology. If you are working with absolute beginners who do not know what an auxiliary verb is, you will need to supply that vocabulary first. The book does not spoon-feed terminology. It assumes you are either a teacher making those connections or a learner who has already encountered these terms elsewhere. If you want a digital copy, the book is available through several academic book retailers and library lending platforms. Search for the ISBN 0582625600 or 978-0582625607 depending on the format you need. The 4th edition is the most widely used version. Earlier editions are cheaper but the content is nearly identical, so unless you need the very latest printing for a citation reason, an older edition works fine for classroom use. I have used this book with learners from A2 up to C1 level over the years. At the lower levels, I focus on the earlier units and skip the more obscure grammar points. At the higher levels, I send students to the later sections on modal verbs, passive constructions, and clause combinations. The book scales reasonably well across proficiency levels, which is unusual for a reference grammar. Most books of this type are either too basic or too advanced for most classroom situations.
The downside of its breadth is that it can overwhelm a teacher who picks it up cold. There are roughly one hundred and fifty units in this book. Trying to plan a course around it linearly is a mistake. I treat it as a toolbox. I pull out what I need when I need it and move on. That is how it should be used. One more practical note about the exercise format. Some of the early units have very short exercises that may not be enough practice on their own. I often supplement them with additional worksheets or board work. The book gives you a foundation but it does not always give you enough repetition for a class that needs it. The later units tend to have more substantial exercise sections, so the amount of practice per topic increases as the book progresses. If you are looking for a grammar book that explains things clearly and gives you reliable practice to go with it, this is one of the better options available. It is not the only option. Swan's Practical English Usage covers similar ground with a more reference-style layout and includes more contemporary examples. But Swan is more of a desk reference while Thomson and Martinet is structured more like a coursebook with actual exercises built in. The choice depends on whether you need quick lookups or sustained practice for your students.
I keep a copy at my desk and another in my classroom cabinet. When I need to explain a grammar point clearly and give my students immediate practice, I open this book and stop searching for alternatives. It has done that job consistently for over twenty years now.
