This study compares two teaching approaches where audio-visual instructionalmaterials and a textbook were used as a means to encourage students to improvetheir language skills – listening and speaking in particular. The two approachesemployed in this research were the Traditional or Classic Approach with a textbookand the Communicative Approach with ‘Custom-designed Communicative-basedInstructional Aids’ or CCIAs. Believing that language itself is dynamic, the researcherdesigned the CCIAs as all-in-one instructional aids containing the contents based onemployers’ needs and students’ real interests. Moreover, the audio-visual instructionalmaterials were developed to support the contents as well as the assessments. Theresearch outcomes supported the hypotheses set when “the ratio change” (thesubjects’ different backgrounds of English) was brought into consideration. That is; thelistening and speaking proficiency of the two samples were significantly different. Thisindicated that improving students’ ability to learn new languages can be defined asthe improvement of audio-visual instructional materials, as well as a variety of choicesin selecting appropriate contents from different textbooks to be used as “teachingtools.”