Help with English grammar?

If you intend a career in TESL you will need to own a general grammar such as Thomson and Martinet's 'Practical English Grammar' (this is what British teachers regularly use, there are other similar texts available).

You should buy yourself such a general grammar and slowly read it through (remembering that there is no such thing as a definitive English grammar, so your text will be correct only 90% of the time).

If you ever want something more advanced, you could look around for a copy of Quirk's "A Grammar of Contemporary English".

You will learn much more with a book than you eve could from a website, Grammar needs careful study and slow thinking about. (Many websites are also very unreliable).

If you ever decide that grammar fascinates you a short course in Latin (three months or so, or even a good teach-yourself book) will get you thinking about grammar in ways unimaginable to people who went through the standard modern educational system. You don't need to master Latin to any extent (maybe up to being able to read gravestones and inscriptions) - but it will show you how grammar works.

(You certainly don't need Applied Linguistics to be a successful TESL teacher. A smattering of a second language - any second language - is far more useful than most Applied Linguistics concepts).

In general to teach you'll need a degree (although there are still possibilities if you do not have this) and a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate to get a visa and work. The degree can be in pretty much ANY subject and the TEFL certificate can be taken either in-house or online at your own pace which is a much cheaper option.

You will, of course, need to know grammar. There are some good sites like this: http://icalweb.com/wiki/index.php?title=Category:G... which explain in basic terms the kind of grammar you'll need when you teach.

And it's not so bad; what you should do is get a couple of TEFL coursebooks and work your way through them as though you were a student. Soon enough you'll pick up the kind of grammar you'll need to know. When, for example, it talks about verb-number agreement you just look it up on the link above (or a good grammar book) and you'll work out the answer.

I do encourage you to study grammar on your own, but whoever told you that an Applied Linguistics degree is a requirement for teaching English as a second language was simply wrong. Most ESL teachers major in something else (English, pedagogy, a foreign language, any humanities major or even Biology), and then take a year's postgraduate training to qualify for their teaching credential. During this credential training year, you can take specialized classes in teaching ESL. You will certainly need a basic grounding in grammar, but not in linguistics. You could probably also find courses in grammar at your university if you don't want to wait until after graduation. Having been a voracious reader is an excellent preparation, because if you can get your English learning students excited about reading for pleasure, it is one of the best things you can possibly do for them.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/