ESL1 is a required course for the students who study in Macedonian and it introduces them to the basic skills needed to survive in a country where English is either natively spoken or used as the language of wider communication. The key features are: a variety of cross-cultural topics, systematic development of all four language skills through realistic challenging tasks which encourage the learner’s personal engagement, lexical exercises practicing and activating all essential vocabulary including collocations, phrasal verbs, fixed phrases, prepositions and word formation, a wide range of speaking activities and intonation practice, writing analysis and practice of various types of writing with full models, grammar sections covering all major grammatical areas and more advanced grammar points.