Essential Grammar in Use with Answers: A Self-Study Reference and Practice Book for Elementary Students of English

Over the last couple of years, I've been teaching English to students in Peru. Although trained as a TEFL teacher after I retired, I hated the focus on the communicative approach to teaching English as a foreign language. I much prefer the approach taken by the Spanish in teaching Spanish as a foreign language: a big, overt emphasis on grammar but with plenty of practice and production thrown in. Hence the two Murphy Books (this one and the Intermediate version) have become a major reference for me in preparing my lessons. They are brilliant. As previous reviewers have said, they're arranged in a logical order and appropriate for different learner levels. So, for example, he covers the use of articles (definite and indefinite) at a basic level in this Basic volume but comes back to the subject again in the Intermediate book where he refines our use of articles, so good for intermediate and upper intermediate students. If I could only take two books back to Peru it would be these. Thank you very much, Mr Murphy!

My students love this, as much as someone can love a grammar book! Its all in colour and everything is simply explained. The grammar points are broken down and put simply on a two page spread, a grammar point on page 2 and the exercises on page 3, no looking halfway down another page to finish the exercises or searching to find the explanation. Fantastic, and very organised with the content and the way everything is laid out. I only wish there were more exercises for each grammar topic, but then they did publish supplementary exercises which I also use. This is a good series, I recommend this book to anyone teaching English (or perhaps even learning by themselves). I do have another wish that there were grammar books of comparable quality for learning French, Spanish etc.. but nothing comes even close. Really recommended, A* !

This is an extremely useful study and teaching aid. It does away with scary grammatical explanations and instead leads the student through various models in common english to provide real experience. Each section comes with an exercise to cement ideas in the students' minds and these are not complicated and provide useful conversation points for lessons. On the whole a book which concentrates on 'when' we use as opposed to 'why' and while it is important for foreign language students to learn grammar, this is invaluable as a first step.

Bought this for my auntie as I already had and used the intermediate one when I was learning! Great book, easy explanations, excellent exercises and has answers... so you can keep checking your language development. Highly recommend it!

This is an excellent book. I teach English as a foreign language privately and I've been using the book for years This copy I bought for a friend abroad who's also started teaching English. The grammatical topics are listed in a logical order. The left hand page has an explanation and the right hand page has exercises as practice. From the beginning, a certain amount of vocabulary is inevitably used so, if teaching someone who is a complete beginner, I type up a simple worksheet first as preparation. Although I also use other material, as a teacher of EFL, I can't imagine life without this book!

As described. I highly recommend this seller.

Essential Grammar in Use is one of the best books on the market for elementary learners of English... and new teachers who need to understand grammar fast! It's got simple explanations and a variety of exercises so it's simple to use and easy to learn from, even if the student has limited knowledge of English. (The book can also be used for self study if you buy the version with answers.)

Have been using books from this series for years (used to teach EFL). Got this one for a Brazilian friend I'm teaching as a favour. Clear explanations/examples very good exercises. Particularly good for 'false beginners' or those like him who have picked up a lot by osmosis, so you can proceed quite quickly, jump about and correct bad habits and provide the structure and understanding previously lacking. Also great for self-study as people can work away on their own. I've always found these books indispesable to accompany any main course book I've used.