Career
Major publications include Practical English Usage and Basic English Usage (Oxford University Press). Other books are Grammar, an introductory book on why languages need grammar and what they do with it and, with David Baker, Grammar Scan (Oxford University Press), a collection of diagnostic language tests. Michael Swan is also the co-author, with Catherine Walter, of The Oxford English Grammar Course, of How English Works and The Good Grammar Book (all with Oxford University Press), and the New Cambridge English Course series (with Cambridge University Press).
Michael Swan"s interests include pedagogic grammar, mother-tongue influence in second language acquisition, and the relationship between applied linguistic theory and classroom language-teaching practice.
He has written articles on all these topics, and is known for influential articles on the communicative approach and on task-based learning. Michael Swan is also a widely published poet.
His poems have been published in several poetry magazines such as Acumen and The Frogmore Papers, as well as in the British Broadcasting Corporation Wildlife magazine. His collection When They Come Foreign You was published by The Frogmore Press in 2003, and his second collection The Shapes of Things was published by Oversteps Books in 2011.
Eurydice. Hermes".