People like Dr Pimsleur improved the army audio-lingual method by emphasizing the link to the context of utterances. For example, in Pimsleur's tapes the voice explain you the particular situation in which you are (You are in a bus in St Petersburg. A young woman seats next to you. What do you say to her?) before making you speak. The result is far better than with the army method, because when you fall in these situations, the right phrases immediately come to your mind, even if you have to create them "from scratch".