The Communicative Grammar of English Workbook (2013)
Introduction
This is the workbook for A Communicative Grammar of English by Geoffrey Leech & Jan Svartvik (3rd edition, published by Pearson Education, 2002). As such, it should be used in conjunction with the grammar.
In this workbook, we have tried to combine the three parts of the grammar. While we have mainly drawn on Part 2 – Grammar in Use, we make reference to Part 1 and to Part 3. In some units, these parts are the main focus.
The workbook does not follow the order of the grammar, except insofar as the units follow the order of sections in Part One and Part Two. In general we have used the descriptions of the sections in the grammar as the headings for the sub-units here.
In the contents and at the beginning of each sub-unit, we list the sections referred to in the grammar. The main sections are those in bold at the beginning. The other sections mentioned indicate where reference is made to the topic.
At the beginning of each sub-unit, there is a brief explanation of how a particular structure is formed and/or when it is used, how certain meanings can be expressed, etc. This is based on the explanations in the grammar and users should refer to the main grammar for more detailed explanations and examples.
The nature of the grammar means that the length of the sub-units varies. In some cases there will be several tasks to demonstrate the variety of use, whereas in others there are only a few tasks or even just one.
Tasks vary in nature, ranging from traditional gap filling exercises to rewrite assignments and conversational passages in which the student is invited to participate in an interactive way.
Not all tasks are equally difficult. For the student’s guidance, each task is followed by one, two or three asterisks, suggesting that it is relatively easy, moderately difficult or quite challenging.
At the end of the book there is an Answer Key. The nature of the grammar means that many tasks will have several possible answers. In these cases we have only suggested answers and others will be possible. Our answers should not be considered the best ones but are only there as a guide.
It is expected that students using this book will be advanced students with a good grounding in the grammar of the language. They now need the opportunity to perfect their skills in the language. They will find this book useful to work on their own and to practise the points raised in the descriptions in the main grammar. Where possible we have tried to use authentic material and to have a variety of different task types.
Teachers can use the book as a grammar course book to give students the extra practice they need. It will also be useful for homework tasks.
Finally, we would like to thank Professor Leech and Professor Svartvik for their support throughout this project. Their careful reading of the manuscript and the comments they made were invaluable and checked any misreading of the grammar we may have made in developing the tasks. We would also like to thank Professor Dr. Dieter Mindt of the Freie Universitat Berlin for making his corpus of the language in use freely available to Edward G. Woods during the semester he was there as a visiting lecturer.