The purpose of this study is to find out the effectiveness ofrnan " inte rm ediate approach" which is based on the technique of creatingrncommunicative contexts for structural exercises. The subjects of thernstudy are 173 first year students of Addis Ababa University who wererndivided into study and control groups by using a random sampling techniquern. The control groups were taught English by using materials basedrnon the structural approach while the study groups were taught usingrnmaterials prepared by the researcher in line with the "intermediaternapproach". At the end of the experiment both the study and controlrngroups were given a post test . The result of the test was analyzedrnby comparing it with the ESLCE results of the students. Subsequently,rnthe hypothesis is tested through the analysis of co-variance .rnTh e result of the analysis shows that there is a significantrndifference between the results of the study and control groups at 5%rnlevel. Therefore, the hypothesis (Ho) that there is no differencernbetween the "intermediate approach" and that of the structural approachrnon the English Language proficiency of first year students has beenrnrejected and the alternative hypotheSiS (H 1 ) is supported. The otherrnfinding of this study obtained from an interactional analysis ofrnclassroom observation is that the "intermediate approach" has a higherrnsurrender v alue than the structural approach since it allows morernpupil talk than teacher talk. Moreover , it has been found out fromrnthe analysis of responses of English language experts that the "interrnmediate approach" lends efficiency to the teaching- l earning processrnby integrating the quality of linguistic knowledge with the abilityrnof using it in real communicative situations .rnThe conclusion drawn from the results are : "intermediaternapproach" helps the learners to cultivate the ability to assoc i aternlinguistic forms with their use in different contexts. The "intermediaternapproach" also facilitates meaningful and in t eresting language practicernand by giving more student talking time, it promotes the confidence ofrnthe learners in using the language.