The materials you use when learning a language are important, so we spend a lot of time selecting our main course books and other materials. These are the criteria we apply:

Materials should:

For each language we have chosen a main course book, which is usually one of a series designed for the various levels.   This will be the anchor for your course and you will need to buy it (unless you book enough hours for your materials to be included in the price, in which case we will get the material sent to you). The books we have chosen focus on communication - speaking and understanding - and on developing vocabulary. They all have some grammar content, but they are not grammatically-focused. You may also want to do some intensive grammar practice in more depth - if you do, you should consider buying a grammar exercise book too. See below.

Listening - ie understanding natural spoken language - is probably the hardest skill to acquire in a foreign language. For this reason, as mentioned above, the course books we have chosen all contain plenty of listening practice on CD or tape, where native-speakers speak naturally and your task is to listen and carry out various exercises which, over time, will improve your ability to understand what is said to you.

Although our teachers do not generally spend a lot of time in lessons working on grammar - you can do this in your own time - you may like to buy a grammar exercise book, so that you can put your learning on a sound footing.

Many people shy away from grammar. If all you want to do is communicate, not worrying too much about making mistakes, that’s OK, but generally we do advise you to work on grammar alongside your communication skills. Understanding how the grammar works will unlock the language for you, allowing you to say what you want to say and do so accurately.

There are some great vocab-building books on the market, which can be fun to work on in your own time.  Exercises can include simple crosswords, learning words in "lexical sets" (words belonging to the same topic area), puzzles and vocab-based games.  You can't speak a language without knowing words, so get stuck in!

We are often asked about dictionaries, so here is our advice. We do not recommend specific dictionaries.

At lower levels, we advise a bi-lingual dictionary of reasonable quality. Bi-lingual means that half of the dictionary is English>the language you are learning, eg Spanish, and the other half is the other way round - Spanish>English. A very cheap, pocket dictionary is a false economy. Spend around £7-£12 and you should get something much more useful.

Once you have reached intermediate level, you should also consider buying a mono-lingual dictionary, which is published only in the language you are studying. This has the advantage for the more advanced learner that explanations and examples are given in the language, so the dictionary becomes a much more sophisticated and useful learning tool.

These days there are also very good on-line dictionaries, which have the advantage that they can be constantly updated, though, being free, they are of variable quality.

Some palm-top electronic translators are quite good, but, even in today's world, we believe there is still nothing to compare with a good, old-fashioned book dictionary.  If you are a committed language learner, it will become your friend for life!