The Vibrant English Verb: Mastering Meaning and Usage, The Key to Fluency

The Vibrant English Verb: Mastering Meaning and Usage, The Key to Fluency draws upon Dr. Steven West’s work with more than 6,000 ESL students in his Linguistics and Advanced Grammar courses over the past 20 years at the University of California Berkeley Extension.

Dr. West created the book for teachers and advanced students of English as a Second Language.

The Vibrant English Verb focuses on the 12 tenses of the indicative mood in English. Verbs in these 12 forms provide the linguistic foundation for the entire English language since verbs hold sway over all sentences.

In addition to an insightful presentation of verbs in the indicative mood, this book also discusses the often-ignored but crucial subjunctive mood.

The Vibrant English verb combines the features of a textbook with the important elements of a workbook. The vibrancy of English verbs shines through in the ways in which they interact with each other in a discourse.

Dr. West’s extensive knowledge of languages other than English has given him special understanding of the English Learner’s dilemma. He has identified the most vexing problems students encounter when studying verbs and has provided detailed, easy-to-understand explanations along with pictorial timelines which clearly identify the relationships among the constituents of a sentence, a paragraph or a dialog.

Most languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Turkish, for example) have only limited forms of verb tenses. That’s why the students from these languages have extreme difficulty with our extensive verb system.

Consider the following English sentence: “We would have been reading the book all day yesterday if the dog hadn’t chewed up the pages.” If this were to be translated into Chinese, the equivalent English version of that translation might begin with, “We no read book—.”

In order for Chinese English Learners and others to master the English version, they must understand the meaning and usage of auxiliary verbs (“would have been”) along with the main verb as a present participle, (“reading”).

These learners have no frame of reference from their own language to guide them toward this understanding. The difficulty for them is that they have no auxiliary verbs.

The Vibrant English Verb provides many sample dialogues which, sentence by sentence, verb by verb, help teachers and students refine their understanding of which verb tense to use under what circumstances and why.

Dr. West’s text is the perfect companion for teachers of ESL and for students who have come to understand that although they may have passed many English proficiency tests, they are still stymied in their real-world use of English.

Memorization does not lead to fluency.

Only genuine understanding and the active practice of proper grammar can accomplish that.

Most books on English grammar fail to demonstrate an understanding of the minefields and obstacles that exist in the minds of non-native English speakers when attempting to master our difficult language.

Fluency, for them, seems frustratingly out of reach.

The Vibrant English Verb offers a way out of the confusion.