直捷英語

《直捷英語》（Direct English）是專門為英語學習者設計的一套聽說強化教程，是《新概念英語》（New Concept English）的作者路易斯·亞歷山大（Louis Alexander）的又一套經典教材。與《新概念英語》不同的是，《直捷英語》（Direct English）採用系列短劇的形式，將語言知識貫穿劇情之中。學習者通過模仿地道美語，達到強化英語聽說能力的目的。

提供全新英語 聽說解決方案

* 獨特的短劇形式，激發濃厚學習興趣

* 合理的結構編排，蘊涵科學學習理念

* 翔實的輔助講解，培養自主學習習慣

* 充足的聽說訓練，營造互動學習空間

* 豐富的配套產品，滿足不同學習需求

亞歷山大（英）L. G. Alexander是世界著名的英語教學權威，曾任歐洲現代語言教學委員會理事。其中一些如NCE（《新概念英語》）和Follow Me（《跟我學》）已成為經典教材。他的《朗文英語語法》也是語法書中的佳作，至今暢銷世界。Direct English（《直捷英語》）是他在有生之年最後為英語學習者奉獻的巔峰之作。

亞歷山大從1992年開始編寫《直捷英語》（Direct English），目標是為學習者提供一個雙語教材，教材的每一方面都有詳盡說明，學習者可以自主控制進度，不需依賴教師來解決困難。在之後的整整五年半時間裡，他一直在從事編寫工作，直到他編寫完《直捷英語》（Direct English），才知道這將是他的最後一部作品了。

《直捷英語》（Direct English）彙集了作者多年的教學研究成果，是亞歷山大先生再有生之年最後為英語學習者奉獻的巔峰之作。如他的夫人朱莉婭·亞歷山大所說，“《直捷英語》是亞歷山大理想中的作品，彙集了他畢生的研究成果。他深信這是自己一生中最好的作品”。

該套教程的編寫依據英語學習的一般規律，根據學習過程中的“積累（building）—鞏固（consolidation）—擴展（expanding）”三個階段設計教材的結構；同時，短劇劇情貼近美國生活，人物個性鮮明，語言生動風趣，不斷發展的故事情節可以讓學習者保持持久的學習興趣，從而達到預期的學習效果。

每冊書分為9個單元，每單元由3課組成，單元結尾設計了自我評估，包括要點回顧和自我測試。書後附單詞表，便於學習者使用。每課包括主對話（或主課文）、語言學習和實踐、譯文三部分。主對話（或主課文）部分的學習是知識積累的過程；語言學習和實踐部分包括重點語法講解、擴展對話和擴展練習。擴展對話幫助學習者鞏固前面積累的語言知識、提高聽力水平，擴展練習則為學習者提供口語訓練，從而實現聽說並舉、相得益彰的效果。每課需要1－2學時，每單元需要3－6學時，每冊書需要30－60學時，使用者可以根據自身的基礎調整學習進度。

本套教材共分9冊，每冊書配錄音帶6盒、VCD1張。難度級別如下：

* 入門級－3冊適合初級英語水平的學習者；

* 4－6冊適合中級英語水平的學習者；

* 7－8冊適合中高級英語水平的學習者

入門級（《直捷英語》入門級，配合《新概念英語》1冊）

級別描述：簡單的聽力和複述能力，簡單的交際能力

能夠進行自我介紹，能夠簡單描述事件、事物

辭彙量：1000

初級（《直捷英語》1、2冊）

級別描述：面對熟悉的情況所需的基本語言駕御能力

能夠理解和傳達簡單的信息，能夠進行一般性的描述

辭彙量：2000

相應考試級別：KET考試（劍橋英語五級證書考試一級）

初中級（《直捷英語》3、4冊）

級別描述：面對熟悉情況的有限但有效的語言駕御能力

能夠用英語做簡單的評述，可以交流簡單的事實情況

辭彙量：3000以上

相應考試級別：PET考試（劍橋英語五級證書考試二級）、BEC1

中級（《直捷英語》5、6冊）

級別描述：面對一定範圍內的情況的一般語言駕御的能力

能夠進行較深入的交談，能夠面對具體的情況提供意見

辭彙量：4500以上

相應考試級別：FCE考試（劍橋英語五級證書考試三級）、BEC2、TOEIC（托業考試）

高級（《直捷英語》7、8冊）

級別描述：面對廣泛的事實情況的良好的語言駕御能力

能夠有效地參與討論和參加會議，能夠進行流利的口頭作文

辭彙量：6000以上

相應考試級別：CAE考試（劍橋英語五級證書考試四級）、BEC3

《直捷英語教學資源包》

《直捷英語》是路易·亞歷山大開發的一套集視聽說和軟體測試於一體的全新多媒體教程。除了圖書、磁帶和VCD，它還配有《直捷英語教學資源包》（非賣品），免費贈送給使用《直捷英語》教學機構。

《直捷英語教學資源包》內有：

1. 直捷英語產品使用手冊：詳細介紹《直捷英語》的教學體系和配套資源，並逐一介紹如何使用。（含口語課資料：各種話題的教學資料，可配合主教材教學，加強學生的口語練習）

2. 定級測試軟體：用於測試學生的英語綜合能力，方便學習者選擇適合自己的級別學習。

3. 進級測試軟體：用於測試學生的學習效果，以確定是否進入下一個單元或級別的學習。

亞歷山大夫人回憶作者寫書歷程

My late husband, Louis Alexander, was born on 15 January 1932, and died on 17th June 2002. He published his first book, Sixty Steps to Précis, in 1962, and for the rest of his life, he continued to travel, to research, to write and to publish at a furious rate. You have a list of his published works here.

When Louis was travelling and meeting people, one of the obvious questions they would ask him, in fascinated tones, was how many books he had published. Although this question may seem obvious and reasonable, Louis would gently explain that it was not possible to count how many books he had written. ‘For,’ he said, ‘how can you define a ‘book’? A little story, such as April Fool’s Day has only thirty-two pages, and is written in a day or two. A four-level course, like Look, Listen and Learn, has 4 Pupil’s books, 8 Workbooks, 4 Teacher’s Books and 8 storybooks. It took five years to write. Both these are separate titles, but they cannot in any way be compared.’

Looking at the list of his works, therefore, we should avoid making a crude tally of their number. The point is that they represent forty years of committed hard work and creativity by a man who had thoughts and ideas flying from his fingertips. He was a Colossus by any standards. His work defined the field of English as a Foreign Language, in terms of teaching, and in terms of publishing. Nothing has happened in the field during his lifetime and since his death that he did not prefigure in his work. He laid down the map of the subject for others to follow.

Louis always knew he was going to be a writer. As a small child, he wrote a ‘magazine’ of articles and stories which he shared with his friends. Later, he wrote for, and edited, the magazines of his school and university. He also directed his fellow students in some of Shakespeare’s plays, played the piano, wrote poetry, went climbing in Wales and Scotland, and studied his chosen subject – English Language and Literature – with passion.

After university, for his military service, he was sent to the British Army’s Higher Education Centre in Germany. His job there was to teach men who were about to go back to civilian life. They needed to pass public examinations, so as to get a good start once they left the army. Those 2 years in the Army represented the perfect preparation for his life-work. His students had only 6 weeks to master the material needed for their exams. Their success depended on truly efficient teaching. Louis got excellent results by planning every detail of the syllabus and writing materials to match. He also employed one of the locals to give him private lessons in German. This was his first language syllabus, created for his own needs, since of course he decided what he wanted to know, and how he wanted to learn. His teacher administered the lessons according to Louis’ plan. Louis had already learned French in school and Greek by listening to his father’s friends, but this time, he was in charge of his own language lessons. He learned German by comparing and contrasting it with English, and so began to look at English inside out. And finally, it may not seem important, but it is basic, that he taught himself at that time to touch-type with great speed and accuracy. Typing was for him as easy as breathing. How else could he have written so much?

I have explained this to you in some detail, so as to illustrate how Louis worked. He had an extremely high energy-level. That was his nature. He was also very self-disciplined. In every area of his life, he would define what had to be done, and then work steadily towards the target. Because he knew what he was doing, he was very patient. Some things take a long time. For example, The Longman English Grammar took seven years to write, and he wrote seven editions in manuscript before it was published. The task of writing a reference work was to decide what to say, then to refine how to say it, and finally to decide what not to say. His aim in all his work was to cut through to the essence of the language, and he knew when he had done so.

The list of Louis’ published works is rather like a map of my own life, since I taught New Concept English and Look, Listen and Learn before I ever met him – and I recognized their greatness immediately. They freed me to become a really good teacher, so that I enjoyed my work. When Longman took me on as a teacher-trainer, I was in a position to follow all Louis’ works as he wrote them, for a period of nearly nine years. Before I got to know him well personally, I observed his work from inside Longman as a privileged observer. I could see that he was working at the cutting edge of syllabus and materials development, and that he was as much at home in the classrooms of developing countries, like Brazil and Egypt, as he was in the highest academic committees of the Council of Europe. I could also see a man who was really keen on new technology. He wrote for all new audio-visual media as soon as they became available, so that he was working in the field of Computer Assisted Language Learning as early as 1979, long before anyone else. The publications of those years included a number of course-books, including Target, Mainline, Follow Me, and the first ever Computer-Assisted Language Courses (published by EMI/Longman with Atari for French, Spanish, German , and Italian).

At the end of those nine years, I married Louis in 1980, and we were invited to come to China the following year. We had a wonderful time here, and were pleased and excited by the connexions we made Soon after that, Louis was invited to provide the blueprint and to advise on Junior English for China, written by Neville Grant and published by The People’s Education Press, Beijing in collaboration with Longman, and sponsored by UNESCO.

In the 1980’s, Louis’ preoccupation with syllabus and learning-processes led him to write reference works rather than course books. In this period, he wrote The Longman English Grammar, The Longman Advanced Grammar and Right Word, Wrong Word. This was a quiet time of deep concentration and seriousness, bringing together all the different insights he had had. By 1992, Louis was ready to write another course. He approached Longman with a proposal to write a course for complete beginners upwards. His plan was to provide a bi-lingualised course, in which every aspect of the syllabus would be defined, so that the student would have full control over the material as he progressed, and would not be dependent on the teacher to mediate any gaps or difficulties. This is a quotation from a letter Louis wrote to his publisher, Michael Johnson, at the time:

I strongly believe we have to work from the bottom upwards, so as to exercise absolute control in the development of the entire course, so there are no inexplicable non-sequiturs and items that haven't properly been accounted for. The basis of the entire undertaking is an accurate definition of levels. You can only really describe a level if it is based on a well-defined syllabus. It comes back to the old contrast between attainment and proficiency. To measure attainment, you need an immutable, objective syllabus which applies equally to everybody. Students and teachers thus have the reassurance of knowing what they have to cover and what they will be tested in. Proficiency is measured by real-life performance, and some students will become more proficient more rapidly than others, but by such a rigorous definition of level, we shall give all learners the maximum opportunity to account for everything in each level as they progress, regardless of whether their teachers are brilliant or not.

Longman’s response to this proposal surprised and delighted him. Instead of letting Louis work alone on a self-study course for those learning English by reading, the publisher, Michael Johnson, proposed a multi-media course, with a bilingual component, with investment on a scale that no publisher had undertaken since Follow Me.

Louis had strong views about the use multi-media teaching purposes. He believed that all communications media should be true to their type: that film should be real film, that radio should be real radio, that course-books should be written by professional authors, and so on. There are only two English Language teaching courses that have ever been published that fit this requirement, and Louis Alexander was the author of both of them. One is Follow Me, and the other is Direct English. All the rest fit into one of two categories:

the first, either the books are written first, and the films follow. Because they are made by teachers and course-writers, they are not ‘real film’, or ‘real TV’. They can be very dull, because they tend to use the screen like a blackboard.

- the second, the films are made by TV and film professionals, who also devise the teaching materials. Because they have no syllabus, they do not serve the purposes of teachers and learners, even if they seem to be amusing.

Follow Me was financed by the German Government. It included network TV, radio and classroom materials. All of these were prepared by experts in the media concerned, but all were locked together by the mighty syllabus Louis had created. The course-material and the multi-media were created together, but each product was true to itself. That’s why it was so successful. In the early 1980’s, Follow Me was viewed by more than a billion learners world-wide.

When Michael Johnson proposed to Louis that he write Direct English, Louis knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to deploy all the insights he had ever had about language, syllabus-design and the learning process into one great course, addressed directly to the learner. Given the opportunity to use all available media, he wanted the film and CD-Rom material to be created seamlessly, together with the Student’s Books and the bi-lingual Companions. He wanted to work closely with a specialist scriptwriter and film-maker, and with specialist designers of CD-Roms. He himself would write the course-books, and he would write the language-analysis to be addressed to the learner in his own language. The Learner’s Companion would be the bi-lingual component, and he and the Editor would take specialist advice on the adaptation to each different language, so as to take account of the different problems of mother-tongue interference. Above all, he wanted to work in a small, closely-knit team. This is what Michael Johnson offered him, when he commissioned Direct English. It was a dream-project. He was in an author’s heaven!

Discussions began in 1992, and by the end of 1993, they had defined the syllabuses and the working method. By the end of May 1994, Louis had submitted the finished script for his pilot-version of Book 1 – the first 3 Levels. This was sent out for trials world-wide, including to Shanghai. Of course, Louis’ name was not attached to the pilot version. We were charmed by a perceptive commentator in Shanghai, who remarked, ‘This material would be successful if it were by L.G. Alexander, and the author has been successful in imitating him. But since it is not by him, it is unlikely to emulate the success of New Concept English.’

Although Louis had written the story-line for the pilot version in British English, it was always intended that the film-sequences would be written by a professional script-writer, who would take Louis’ scripts as a demonstration of the language syllabus, and generate a completely new story-line, written in American English, and set in America. In May 1994, Longman commissioned a documentary film-maker, Mike Raggett, and Mike brought in Daisy Scott, an experienced script-writer from Boston who quickly understood the dimensions of the syllabus. Daisy wrote the 27 dialogues for Level One in collaboration with Louis. She generated the story, and Louis kept her within the syllabus, while not interfering with her American English. Then everyone, including Louis, went to Boston for the filming. Meanwhile, Louis wrote the rest of the material for each level, developing the language, the characters and the plot as he went, and sending each unit as he worked to an American English language specialist, Ellen Shore, at the University of Nevada. Ellen advised on American idiom, and Louis adjusted his material until she accepted it as real American English. (The differences between British and American English are mainly phonological, though there are also some lexical and stylistic differences, especially in the spoken language. Grammatical differences are really very few.) And this process was repeated for the next two levels as well. The writing continued into 1998. By 1999, the ongoing tasks were mainly editorial, to do with the production of language-specific versions of Direct English for all the different languages. This was carried forward by Sarah Gumbrell, Louis’ Editor, the best Editor he ever had. This process continues today, as you can see now, with the Chinese Edition that has been prepared with FLTRP.

In preparing this document, I have gone back through the letters-file from that period, and I am struck, as I have always been, by Louis’ cheerful curiosity, his generosity towards his colleagues, and the sheer, affectionate, burning energy of the man. His tone is always bright and optimistic, and his work rhythm as steady as a power station. He was also working on New Concept English Chinese New Edition, published by FLTRP at the end of 1997, though the work on the new Teacher’s Books and Workbooks for that edition continued until 2001. I note in his letters that he was annoyed to have very bad flu several times in 93, 94 and 95, since it wasted his time and was very boring. I remember saying to him that he was working too hard, and that we needed to take more time out. He brushed my concerns aside. He was happy. He would never retire. He was doing what he wanted to do.

In January 1998, we learned that he had a very serious blood-disease. Even so, he still pursued all the things that had always mattered to him. He was determined to go on being like himself. He still worked, still communicated constantly with his friends and colleagues, went to concerts and art-galleries, and lived every minute of every day with the same intensity. In one of his periods of illness, he was deeply pleased when Mr. Li Pengyi visited him in hospital in London. Meanwhile, the news about Direct English was excellent. People liked it. It had the lowest ‘drop-out rate’ of any course ever written; 98% of people inscribed for Level One went on to do Level Two. We talked a lot about Direct English. He and I were cheerfully convinced that it was his best course – that he had achieved his desire to realise, in one great work, the insights that he had gained through 40 years of tireless work in the field of English Language teaching and learning. The bi-lingualisation into so many different languages world-wide was slow, but each new issue was followed by success with the learners.

Today marks the launch of Direct English Chinese Edition. As our partners in New Concept English, FLTRP are the natural home for L.G. Alexander’s last, finest, most complete course. It is a matter of great personal satisfaction to me to be here for such an event. I thank Mr. Li Pengyi and his valued colleagues at FLTRP for their kindness and loyal hard work, and congratulate them on the quality of the books. My particular thanks go to Ms Zhang Lixin for her attentive and intelligent editing. I wish every success to Direct English in China, and hope that every learner who takes it up may feel entertained, and engaged, and confident in the learning of English as a International Language.

Julia Alexander

Beijing

22 September 2005

先夫路易斯·亞歷山大生於1932年1月15日，逝於2002年6月17日。自1962年他的第一本著作 Sixty Steps to Précis 出版以來，他一直暢遊各地，致力於研究、寫作和出版。現附上他的著作年表。

許多人都曾驚奇地問路易斯，他到底出版了多少書籍。這個問題似乎很容易回答，但路易斯會溫和地解釋說，他寫了多少書，是無法統計出來的。他說：“你如何定義‘書’呢？像 April Fool’s Day 這樣的一個小故事，只有32頁，用一兩天就能寫完。而像《看、聽、學》這樣的一套四級教程，有4本學生用書，8本練習冊，4本教師用書和8本故事書，花了5年的時間才完成。兩者都是‘書’，但完全不具可比性。”

因此，對他的著作我們不能只看表面的數字。它們是四十年的努力和智慧的結晶，為後人奠定了英語作為外語的教學和出版的基礎。無論從哪一方面來看，路易斯都是當之無愧的大家。

路易斯自小就知道他會成為一個作家。幼時他就開始編寫“雜誌”，和朋友們分享他的文章和故事。之後，他為學校校刊撰稿並擔任編輯。同時，他執導學生出演的莎士比亞戲劇、彈奏鋼琴、寫詩、登山，並滿懷熱情地學習英國語言文學。

大學畢業后，作為服兵役的內容，路易斯被派去駐守在德國的英國軍隊高等教育中心工作。在軍中的2年為他日後的事業發展打下了很好的基礎。他負責給即將複員的軍人上課，這些軍人只有6周的學習時間來準備公共考試，因此老師的教學方法尤為重要。路易斯進行了精心備課並準備了相應寫作材料，教學效果非常好。他還請了一位當地人教他德語，為自己設計了教材——這是他寫作的第一套教材。之前路易斯在學校學過法語，通過聽父親的朋友聊天學習了希臘語，但這一次，是他自己決定了他要學習的內容和方法。在學習的過程中，他通過將德語與英語進行比較，開始深入研究英語。最後，他還學會了快速準確的盲打，這看似不重要，卻是寫作的基本要求。

路易斯精力充沛，自律力極高。做任何事情，他都會實現設定目標，然後穩步向目標邁進。因為清楚認識自己的目標，他對工作很有耐心，不一蹴而就。例如，《朗文英語語法》花了他7年時間，共寫了7稿。

在我還沒有和路易斯見面之前，我就在教授《新概念英語》和《看、聽、學》。我一接觸這兩套教材就意識到了它們的偉大之處。它們讓我成為了一位好老師，讓我真正喜歡上我的工作。成為了朗文出版社的培訓師后，在9年的時間裡，我都在關注著路易斯的寫作。當時他為歐洲理事會工作，推動歐洲理事會各國語言教材的發展。此階段他出版了教材、English Grammatical Structure 及 The Threshold Level for Schools. 其他幾部教材如 Target、 Mainline 、《跟我學》及首部計算機輔助教材（後由EMI/朗文和Atari出版，有法語版、西班牙語版、德語版和義大利語版）也在醞釀中。

1980年我和路易斯結婚，第二年應邀來到中國。我們在中國度過了一段難忘的美好時光，結識了很多朋友。不久，路易斯就受邀為人民教育出版社和朗文共同出版的《初中英語》編寫大綱和提供參考意見。

80年代，路易斯開始將工作重心轉移到編寫教輔上。他陸續出版了《朗文英語語法》、《朗文高級語法》和Right Word, Wrong Word。這段時期，他一直在思考如何融合他所吸收的各種理念，為出版新教材做準備。到1992年，路易斯覺得時機已經成熟。他向朗文提交了一個教程編寫方案，針對群體是零起點的初學者。他的目標是為學習者提供一個雙語教材，教材的每一方面都有詳盡說明，學習者可以自主控制進度，不需依賴教師來解決困難。

朗文對此方案表現出了很大的熱情，出版人Michael Johnson建議路易斯編寫一套雙語多媒體教程，投資規模可以與《跟我學》相媲美。

路易斯對多媒體教學有自己的見解。他認為多媒體教學中的所有語言介質都應該是真實的：電影就應該是真的電影，廣播是真的廣播，教材應該由專業作者編寫等等。目前出版的教材只有兩套是符合這個標準的，作者都是路易斯：《跟我學》和《直捷英語》。其他的教材不外乎兩種：

第一種，教師或教材作者先編寫教材，隨後製作電影。因此它們不是真的電影或電視，很可能會很無趣，因為編寫者將屏幕當作了黑板。

第二種，電影和輔助資料都由影視專業人士製作。電影也許很有意思，但因為沒有對應的教材，它們也不適用於教學。

當Michael Johnson提議 路易斯編寫《直捷英語》時，路易斯對這套教材有著非常明確的目標。他希望能將他對語言、課程設計和學習過程的理念全部融合進去，和專業的編劇、導演及光碟設計師合作，將電影、光碟和學生用書完美地結合在一起。這是他理想中的作品！

從1992年開始洽談相關事宜，到了1993年底，基本確定了教材的框架和合作方式。1994年5月底，路易斯提交了第一冊書的試行稿。雖然路易斯是用英式英語來編寫故事大綱的，但從一開始，就計劃請專業編劇以路易斯的大綱為參照，撰寫一個全新的美式英語版，場景設定也在美國。在波士頓拍電影的同時，路易斯繼續編寫其餘級別的內容，並請美式英語專家幫助審定修改。編寫的過程一直持續到1998年。到1999年，基本上就是編輯工作以及編寫不同語言的版本了。這項工作一直持續到今天，像外研社出版的《直捷英語》中文版就是其中一例。

1998年1月，路易斯被診斷患有嚴重的血液病。儘管如此，他還是堅持追求他的理想，做他想做的事情。他仍然工作，和朋友同事保持聯繫，去音樂會和畫廊，每一分鐘都過得很充實。在倫敦的一次住院期間，李朋義社長來到醫院探望他，讓他非常高興。《直捷英語》推出后的反響也非常好，有98%的人學習完級別一後繼續學習級別二。這個比率是所有的英語教材中最高的。

今天是《直捷英語》首發式。作為我們《新概念英語》的合作夥伴，外研社是亞歷山大這部巔峰之作的最好歸宿。能來到北京參加這個重要儀式，本人感到非常欣喜。在此我要感謝李朋義社長和外研社的工作人員，謝謝他們的誠摯和辛勤工作。特別感謝張黎新小姐為此書編輯。願《直捷英語》在中國獲得成功，也希望中國的學生們能開開心心地學習本套教材，掌握世界通用語言——英語。

Julia Alexander

北京

2005年9月22日

非常榮幸由我來為《直捷英語》（Direct English）作序。《直捷英語》是我丈夫編寫的最後一部著作，所以我知道他自然把這部作品看作是他在英語教學領域的畢生經歷的總結。路易斯在1962年出版了他的第一本書——Sixty Steps to Précis，這本書彙集了路易斯作為年輕教師的聰明才智和為他的小學生寫本“解決問題的”書的強烈渴望。在之後的40年裡，他編寫的材料幾乎涉足了英語作為外語的所有領域，從孩子的故事書到語言教科書，從學術類參考書到語法書。所有這些作品都有一些共性的東西：

首先，他的每部著作的創作動機來源於為“解決問題”而創作的渴望。路易斯並不在意物質回報。事實上，如果他發現人們如此喜歡他編寫的《新概念英語》，他原本可以一遍遍地修訂此書，然後早早退休度過一個富足的晚年！但他在本性上從來都是拒絕寫同樣的書。他堅持讓他的每一部新書都能達到一個真正的預期目標，這是為什麼他的書總是給人新鮮感的一個原因：他非常喜歡探索的過程，而他的書的使用者可以在體味他的深沉和嚴肅的同時感受到他的創作熱情。

第二點，他的偉大智慧和吃苦耐勞的精神促使他的作品不斷發展。每次作為編者的經歷為他帶來新的想法，而這些新想法會融入他的下一個項目。他在20世紀70年代在“歐洲語言教學委員會”從事大綱編寫工作，那10年的經歷使得他在80年代開始對於語言學習材料的各種編寫方法都形成了清晰的認識。在他編寫完The Longman English Grammar （1981－1988）之後，他對於語言本身的研究已經達到非常深入、細緻的程度，他對於編寫領域的技巧把握達到了前所未有的嫻熟程度。

第三點，他主張學習是——必定是——一種樂趣！他是個非常會講笑話的人，而且經常拿那些枯燥的教材開玩笑，他說有些教材太枯燥，學生還沒有學完第一課就會無聊致死。他主張不應該讓學習者在使用教材的時候意識到其中的知識框架；教科書應該儘可能地促進學習者輕鬆進步，不是注重簡單的輕鬆而忽略學習過程中真正存在的障礙，而是用一種安全而循序漸進的方法，用風趣的故事和對話形式來表現所要學習的內容。路易斯在編寫這樣的材料方面具有獨特的優勢，因為他在講故事方面很有天賦，對於各種人生經歷懷有強烈的好奇心。

路易斯1992年開始編寫《直捷英語》，他很高興接受這個項目，因為《直捷英語》是他的一套理想中的教材，它集合了他畢生的研究成果：

——本套教材以故事為主線。路易斯編寫參考書多年，一直渴望再次創作故事和對話。

——路易斯對於語言的研究已經很深入，所以非常熟悉各種語法規則和結構。

——本套教材所採用的大綱是30年來對於大綱研究的發展和修訂的成果。

——本套教材採用了不同語言介質，體現了路易斯對於語言介質在語言學習過 程中的作用的經心考慮。

——本套教材採用雙語形式，這樣路易斯可以直接用學習者的本族語言同學習者對話，解決那些令人困惑的“語法規則”，而這些規則在各種傳統的語言學習方法中由教師在教室里不斷的重複，而學生往往不知其所云。

——這種融入學習者自己的語言的作法可以使學習者轉變為自己控制方向盤，這意味著學習者可以按照自己的需要控制學習進度。學習進度的一些中斷不會造成糟糕的後果，而聰明、敏銳的學生則可以快速地進步。

路易斯1992年開始編寫《直捷英語》的初稿，在之後的整整五年半時間裡一直在從事編寫工作。直到他編寫完《直捷英語》，他才知道這將是他的最後一部作品了。他一直認為他永遠不會退休——他一直是這樣做的——但我想他從來沒有料到這套教材的完成竟然同時標誌著他生命的終結。他於1998年1月被診斷患有白血病，於2002年6月17日病逝。

路易斯在得知自己的病情，開始評價自己的一生的時候，總是帶著特別的喜悅和滿足感提到《直捷英語》，他知道這套教材是他所編寫的最好的一部作品。我和他都認為這套教材集合了他的職業生涯的所有成果，所以它可以為他畢生的工作“劃上完美的句號”。換一種說法，大多數去世的人都帶著“未盡”之夙願離開人世，而路易斯的去世卻不同，他對於自己離開人世沒有半點遺憾。

路易斯和我於1981年3月－4月第一次來到中國，遊覽了北京、上海和廣州三地。我們被受到的熱情歡迎深深打動，那次旅行對於我們兩人來說非常愉快。多年來，路易斯同中國建立了一種非常特別的關係。他贊同中國的語言學習傳統（基於故事學習），他和我都認為中國學習者對於他編寫的教材有一種特別的領悟。從1981年到現在，我們同中國的同事之間的友誼已經日趨深厚，我非常高興地看到路易斯去世之後這種聯繫依然在繼續。

我非常滿意地看到《直捷英語》在中國出版，並且由《新概念英語》的出版社——外語教學與研究出版社出版。我相信外研社是路易斯的這部最後，也是最好的著作的最好歸宿。本套教材在中國的出版將向路易斯同外研社社長李朋義之間的深厚友誼致敬。他們都是了不起的人，他們多年前的偶然相遇為我們兩個國家做了一件大好事。我希望中國的學生能夠開開心心地學習本套教材，它將為你們展現英語使用者所享有的大千世界。

Julia Alexander

2005年9月