-- Communicative, student-centered activities enable students to engage in meaningful communication. A wealth of pair work, role plays, and group work helps students learn cooperatively.
-- Abundant practice -- oral and written -- reinforces new concepts in guided and open-ended formats.
-- Grammar is presented and recycled in interesting and humorous contexts -- both readings and conversations -- so that students experience how the language is really used.
-- Basic competencies are taught in context: asking directions, taking a bus, buying food, shopping for clothes, etc.
-- Ample opportunity for review is provided in each chapter, using all four language skills. In addition, every fourth chapter is a review chapter.
-- Student Books are fully illustrated with humorous four-color drawings (Books 1-4). Clear direction lines and headings make Student Books "transparent" to students and teachers alike.
-- Workbooks feature lessons closely coordinated with the lessons in the text, and provide additional writing practice with the same grammatical structures and vocabulary.
-- Teacher's Resource Manuals for each level include reduced Student Book pages accompanied by page-by-page teaching suggestions.
-- Audiocassettes for each level include the dialogues, stories, and pronunciation exercises in the Student Books. A variety of voices, accompanied by appropriate sound effects, gives students opportunities to hear English spoken by native speakers.
-- Screening and Placement Tests assure accurate placement of students.