Essential English is a course in four books, of which this is the first, for the teaching of English to adult foreign students. It aims at giving the student a sound knowledge of the essentials of both spoken and written English and taking him well on the way to a mastery of idiomatic conversational and literary English.
The normal constructions and sentence patterns of English are introduced gradually and systematically, and are well drilled at every stage. The learner is guided through essential grammar in the simplest possible manner, and every new construction is explained and illustrated as soon as it is used.
The restricted vocabulary within which the four books are written has been based on A General Service List of English Words. But neither this list, nor any other list, has been followed slavishly and blindly; the vocabulary and the grammar and the structures taught have been tested constantly by the experience gained during some thirty years of teaching English to foreign students or writing text-books for them.