Although this is the third and final stage of an established course, the content does not depend entirely on its predecessors: it can be used as discrete freestanding material at key stage 4 to follow most other possible introductions.

This freedom extends to the arrangement of the six topic-based units: covering personal and social life, everyday activities, where you live, from school to work, likes and dislikes, and different countries and their people.

Skills encountered in the course include how to express an opinion, how to give reasons, how to discuss issues and how to cope in a variety of situations. Specific work on the future tense and past tenses extend the possibilities. Pair and group-work are well provided for.

The pupil’s book includes Kulturinfo providing useful background information for each topic, extra practice in more difficult activities and Projektseite for further development of each theme. One particularly useful feature is a comprehensive list of classroom instructions in German, although it is unfortunate that this page is printed entirely on top of a coloured photograph, making it hard to decipher. The book ends with a grammar summary, including a welcome section on word order, and a German-English vocabulary list.

All the material that we have come to expect in the Teacher’s Book is included here: detailed suggestions for the use of the material, a unit-by-unit guide to the course’s components and how they relate to the national curriculum, transcripts of the cassettes and answers to the exercises on the repromasters, which come in an attractive pack and include self-profiling materials. Pack B is not specific to Gute Reise! and the list clearly makes them useful with any course as extension and illustrative material.

Many modern language courses purport to be designed for teenagers, but often read more like a travel book for tourists. Gute Reise! is clearly orientated towards young people and youth culture: in terms of motivation, relevance is paramount.