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Long gone (thank goodness) are the days when a language course consisted of a book packed with dry grammar exercises, perhaps a few stilted reading passages, and very little else. It is widely recognized now that a crucial element in successful language learning is variety. A good language course will provide a variety of materials to work with and many different types of tasks and exercises for the student to carry out. The majority of courses are still book-based, but often books are well illustrated, providing visual stimulus and interest, and contain a plethora of reading passages, guided writing exercises, crosswords and quizzes, role-play activities, useful information about the country and the people, as well as sections on grammar. Most courses now come with CDs which provide essential listening practice. Again, ideally these will consist of varied and interesting extracts conversations, interviews, role-play exercises where the learner takes part, sometimes even a mini soap opera; each chapter in the book brings a new instalment of the drama on the CD.

The idea is that language learning should be fun, interesting and should help the learner gain skills in listening and speaking as well as reading and writing. After all, most people learning a language do so because they want to be able to communicate in that language. I did mention grammar, though. I'm afraid there's no way round it: if you want to become any way proficient in a language, you're going to have to learn some grammar. Learning phrases and vocabulary, while an essential part of learning a language, will only get you so far: they're the building blocks, but you need to know how to put them together in a meaningful way. Without that, you'll be forever limited to set phrases and simple sentences, whereas knowing how the language works gives you limitless options. And grammar really doesn't have to be dull and boring honest! For a start, grammar should never be taught out of context, but should always arise naturally from, say, a passage that's just been read, or an episode of that mini soap opera you've just listened to. That way it's more likely to make sense and you can see why you're learning it. There are plenty of materials around now to help make grammar learning interesting and fun: books that present points in a light-hearted way (using comic-strip techniques to illustrate points, for example), websites that present grammar points in a variety of different ways, with interactive exercises

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