Across the world, the first accounting course provides serious challenges for teaching. These arise from powerful negative perceptions which include the anxiety associated with tertiary-level study and the differing backgrounds or majors of students required to take the course. This paper outlines some examples of nontraditional teaching techniques and highlights how the course could be best structured to overcome such negative views while at the same time responding to the changes in the industry. The design and content of the proposed course emphasizes the USER approach and is directed to English as second language learners. This is a case study in an Australian offshore campus and is the end result of the progressive improvement in the structure and delivery of the course.