The Anti-Grammar Grammar Book certainly promotes grammar - the investigation of rules of form and corresponding meanings in the language system.
It is anti-grammar in that it sets out to avoid giving students rules. Instead it casts the students in the role of ‘thinker’, providing them with cognitive, problem-solving tasks to discover grammatical rules and meanings for themselves. The material does not say, ‘Here is a rule and a meaning, learn them!’ but rather, ‘Here is a sample of English - discover the rules and meanings for yourself!’
The Anti-Grammar Grammar Book also sets out to avoid the conventional gap-fill and transformation exercises which proliferate in existing materials. Instead it provides a variety of cognitive, involving, and creative activities to practise language both in controlled and freer frameworks. The content of the exercises is intended not just to present and practise language areas but to be of interest to the student in its own right. All of the activities have been fully tried and tested in classrooms.
