No. The course fee you pay includes all course materials. The reason we do not ask students to buy textbooks is because:
1) the standard textbook is designed for full time language learners and hence not very appropriate for adult professionals;
2) generally standard textbooks put a heavy emphasis on learning grammar from the very start. This puts off a lot of students;
3) text books are designed for equal emphasis on reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. Given we do not emphasise on reading/writing skills at the beginners level, the books are sometimes not a very good fit with our teaching approach.
4) textbooks are very expensive, and if you only use 10% of the book in a course, it’s not great value for money.
We do encourage language learners to buy a dictionary though; whether it’s paper or electronic doesn’t matter. In fact those of you with IPhones/Ipods may well consider dictionaries and translation apps on the Appstore.
For most of our lower-level standard courses, students will be issued with a coursebook at your first class.