What books will I use for my course?

Course books, supplementary material, dictionaries...

We constantly scour the market for the best materials for you to use.

There are several categories of material:

Course Books

In nearly all cases, you will need a course book appropriate to your level.  We select course books that offer lots of up-to-date speaking and listening practice (most books now come with a CD with the listening material) as well as useful vocabulary.  This book is the key one in your course and is what the teacher will work on with you in lessons.  Most course books also contain grammar reviews, but are not grammar books as such.

When you sign up for a course, we will tell you which book to buy and where we suggest you buy it.

Supplementary Material

In addition to the course book, you may wish to buy supplementary material such as vocab books, verb lists etc.  There is lots of great material on the market.  Buying this material is optional and not essential, but if you are really keen it's a good idea to build up a library of material.  We will give you some ideas in our joining letter.

Grammar books

We strongly believe that a good grasp of the grammar is essential unless you only want to communicate at a very basic level.  So - sorry! - you are going to have to get down to some grammar study.  Again, there are very good books available and we will give you a suggestion for which one to buy when you sign up.

Dictionary

While there are many good online dictionaries - and no doubt you will make use of them - there is nothing like having an old-fashioned book, and we do recommend you get yourself a dictionary.  Alternatively, if you have an e-reader/Kindle or similar, this could be a good option.  A bi-lingual dictionary (your native language>target language and vice-versa) is a good starting point, but for serious language study, as your level improves, a mono-lingual dictionary, with definitions in the target language, is a very useful tool.