The Language Teacher
November 2001

Impact Grammar.Grammar through Listening

Ruth Wajnryb

A colleague of mine was at my place the other day. He saw my review copy of Impact Grammar on my desk, flipped through it, and said, "Oh, another grammar book, well let me tell you if it's any good." "Oh yeah," I said, "and how can you tell that so fast?" He said, "Easy, just see what it says about relative clauses." He went on to say that in his experience, if a grammar-oriented EFL book can get it right with relative clauses, you can be pretty sure of all the rest.

Goaded thus, I went straight to the relative clauses section. If this is indeed a barometer of a grammar book's worth then Ellis and Gaies' Impact Grammar certainly recommends itself. There are three units on relative clauses (which/that; where/when; whose) and appropriately, they are located as the last of the 50 graded units. I found the explanations as lucid as any I've seen on relative clauses.

A close inspection of Impact Grammar suggests it is a highly readable and worthwhile source of grammar practice and understanding. While there's no shortage of material on the market that purports to offer this, Impact Grammar actually does. There are 50 units covering five levels. The authors assert that "all levels" of learners are targeted, with units being graded from very low (third person pronouns, there is/are, be, and have) to very complex (as I said above, the last three units deal with relative clauses).

At the end of each level there is a review test--a welcome means of assessing learner progress. The grammatical explanations provided for lower levels are appropriately worded--they are more simply and accessibly designed than those for higher levels. This is crucial, because to be of value, all levels of learners need to be able to access the "yellow section" containing the explanations. Logically, as structures become more complex and abstract, so do the explanations, placing them out of reach of low-level learners. The explanations are enhanced by the examples of common errors.

The book's format is refreshing. With Ellis as one of the authors, it is closely tied to research findings in Second Language Acquisition(SLA). Certainly, it is unusual in the materials world of TESOL to find a book that emerges from data-driven understandings rather than anecdotal remarks, teacher's intuitions or the latest fashion impulses. Impact Grammar is driven by four general principles that have emerged from SLA research:

The prototype for each unit follows a 5-section format. Step 1 is a listening exercise, using the CD provided, where the learner is encouraged to listen for gist. A word box is there to help. Several listenings are encouraged and then comes a straightforward scannin-style activity. Step 2 is called "listening to notice": a listening cloze activity, with a grammatical focus, tunes the listener into identifying key grammatical items. Step 3 offers a number of inductive exercises that aim to lead/steer learners towards understanding the rule that governs determiners, countability, and uncountability. In Step 4, learners check their understanding by "spotting the errors" and confirming their understanding by checking the yellow section, where the explanations are offered in full. The last step, called "trying" it, is an activity where the learner is encouraged to use the focus item of grammar in a productive and personal way.

Impact Grammar, fortunately, is peopled by folk one might actually encounter (it includes topics like dementia, and loneliness, and frailty in old age). While the book is organised structurally, most units have subheadings that are topic driven (e.g., "Great Musicians," "Famous Modern Buildings"), but some are function driven ("Making an appointment," "Personal opinions," "Describing people"), and some are rather traditionally situational ("at the zoo," "a visit to the doctor," "at work").

The aspects that most particularly please me in this book are the focus on listening and noticing, and secondly, the reduced emphasis on speaking or output or production. Just as fluency and accuracy are hard for the ESOL learner to achieve simultaneously, so too is it difficult to have students induce grammatical salience while also focussing on encoding language for spoken or written production.

Good teaching notwithstanding, Impact Grammar is also designed to be used by the self-study learner at home or in a Language Centre. It is bright and colourful, attractively designed, and very easy to use. The units can be treated as a course and worked through methodically, e.g., one might take a class of learners through one or two entire levels or one might plot out a course specially tailored for one's class, selecting units for presentation or consolidation purposes. There's just under an hour's worth of classroom time involved in each unit, although a teacher can expand or omit at their discretion and set some sections for homework. My feeling is that teachers adept at milking materials for the maximum exploitable ends could wrap a 90-minute lesson around a unit.

Reviewed by noted applied linguist and author

Dr. Ruth Wajnryb


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