American Options

Options for learning, options for life

American Options is the new international American English course that helps all students reach their full potential. With a special focus on mixed-ability learning, it offers a variety of tasks to cater for every student's needs.

  • Differentiated skills development through Basic and Enriched versions of the main reading texts, complete with audio, to support mixed-ability classes.
  • Authentic American English audio accompanies all listening exercises.
  • A step-by-step approach to grammar and vocabulary, taking students safely from language presentation to practice and production.
  • Cognitive and emotional engagement is encouraged through a wide range of engaging content and activities that make learning enjoyable and memorable.
  • A competency-based approach which also supports the development of Learning for life skills, clearly mapped and labelled throughout the course.
  • CLIL and Sustainable Development Goals presentations address the global challenges we face through attractive and thought-provoking double-page spreads.
  • A complete digital package for personalised, adaptive online learning.
  • Meaningful and entertaining videos in both British and American English provide wider exposure to current media.
  • Extensive practice for international exams.

Key Features

Videos

American Options offers a wide range of video content as a highly engaging and educational learning tool. CLIL & Sustainable Development Goals, real-world, documentary-style, animations, vlogs and grammar raps.

The Secret Spring animated stories engage learners and help them to retain key vocabulary / language.
levels 1-2

Documentary-style Watching the World videos introduce the opening spread topic.
levels 3-4

Real-life stories present language in the context of the target language culture.
‘The After-School Club’: levels 1-2
‘The Café’: levels 3-4

Learning for life vlogs show Jamie and Luna share insights into their own lives.
levels 1-4

CLIL/Sustainable Development Goals morning newscast-style videos invite students to reflect on social, economic, and environmental challenges. 
levels 1-4

Grammar raps help learners to retain important grammar structures in their long-term memory, while having fun.
levels 1-4

The Authors

Herbert Puchta

Herbert Puchta

Herbert Puchta is an award-winning author and teacher trainer. He has been a plenary speaker at numerous international conferences, and has conducted workshops and given seminars in more than 50 countries. For almost three decades, he has carried out research into the practical application of findings from cognitive psychology to English Language Teaching.

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Chris Jory

Chris Jory

Chris Jory has worked in the field of English language teaching for over 30 years. As a teacher and teacher trainer he has taught in schools in Italy, Spain, Brazil, Venezuela, Greece and the UK. He has also worked on the creation of teaching and learning materials for more than 20 years, including as an editor, publisher, and writer.

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Peter Lewis-Jones

Peter Lewis-Jones

Peter Lewis-Jones is a freelance author who has been involved in EFL since 1993. After stints abroad teaching in Italy, Egypt, Indonesia and Brazil, he returned to the UK in 2006 to concentrate on writing. He now lives on the North Wales border where he spends his time meeting deadlines and birdwatching in his free time.

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Christian Holzmann

Christian Holzmann

Christian Holzmann teaches English and German at the Rainergymnasium and the Sir Karl Popper Schule in Vienna, methodology at the Department of English at Vienna University, and also works as a teacher trainer. He is the co-author of a series of successful coursebooks for ELT and regularly publishes articles on methodology, literature and media.

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