Students acquire familiarity with the new language at first by listening, and responding by gesture and short answers. Then, gradually, games, typical dialogue-situations, reading, and written exercises are included in this "audio-motor" approach. To co-ordinate action and speech a large part of the instruction time is spent with model situations such as shopping, travelling, or entertaining. From these model patterns comes the ability to think and speak idiomatic German, and to extend this mastery to other real-life situations. As the course proceeds the comprehension of prepared texts is stressed more.