Side by Side, by Bill Bliss and Steven J. Molinsky, has helped more than 25 million students worldwide persist and succeed as language learners. Now Side by Side Plus—a special edition of Side by Side—builds students’ general language proficiency and helps them apply these skills for success in daily life and work. Here’s a brief description of how Side by Side Plus works (adapted from a welcome message by the authors).

Flexible Language Proficiency Plus Life Skills

The core mission of Side by Side Plus is to build students’ general language proficiency so they can use English flexibly to meet their varied needs, life circumstances, and goals. We strongly believe that language teachers need to preserve their role as true teachers of language even as we fill our lesson plans with required life-skill content and prepare students for standardized tests. 

Our program helps you accomplish this through a research-based grammatical sequence and communicative approach in which basic language lessons in each unit lead to standards-based lessons focused on students’ life-skill roles in the community, family, school, and at work.

Meaningful Instruction Relevant to Students’ Lives

Throughout the instructional program, civics topics and tasks connect students to their community, personalization questions apply lesson content to students’ life situations, and critical-thinking activities build a community of learners who problem-solve together and share solutions.

Extending Learning Outside the Classroom

The magazine-style Gazette sections in Side by Side Plus provide motivating material for students to use at home. Feature articles, vocabulary enrichment, and other activities reinforce classroom instruction through high-interest material that students are motivated to use outside of class. 

A bonus Audio CD offers entertaining radio program-style recordings of key Gazette activities.

Student-Centered Learning

The core methodology of Side by Side Plus is the guided conversation—a brief, structured dialog that students practice in pairs and then use as a framework to create new conversations. Through this practice, students work together to develop their language skills "side by side." They are not dependent on the teacher for all instruction, and they know how to learn from each other. 

This student-centered methodology and the text’s easy-to-use format enable students to study outside of class with any speaking partner—a family member, a friend or neighbor, a tutor, or a co-worker, even if that person is also an English language learner. If students need to attend class intermittently or "stop out" for a while, they have the skills and text material to continue learning on their own.