How to Avoid Choosing the Wrong Kind of English Holiday for You
Written to help you notice what matters before you invest in an English language holiday.
Choosing an English holiday can feel surprisingly difficult.
It’s a crowded market, full of noise. Everyone is explaining why their offer is the best — and we do that too, when it’s the right moment.
But this page exists for a different reason.
The writing collected here is designed to help you make the right choice for you — especially if you’re trying to avoid something that looks good on paper but feels wrong once you arrive.
This isn’t a complete overview of every type of English course or holiday. It’s a growing collection of reflections and practical guides, written to help you ask better questions before you decide.
Why this page exists
Over the years, we’ve had to make many decisions about what we don’t want to be in order to understand how we help people well.
We arrived at our model by rejecting a number of long-standing conventions in language education — not because they’re wrong in themselves, but because they often serve schools more than the people learning.
The pieces linked here reflect that process. Each one explores a moment where something didn’t feel right — and what we learned by paying attention to that discomfort.
feeling comfortable with the course
at ease with the school and the delivery
supported by the environment
and able to engage with the content without pressure
Experience, not theory
The perspective behind this page comes from long experience inside the field.
It includes time spent working in commercial language schools, running an independent school, collaborating with ESOL professionals around the world, and supporting independent teachers — because we believe care matters more than any single method when it comes to language development.
It also comes from lived experience.
I spent a decade living inside a second language myself — navigating families, workplaces, and everyday life without much support, without being welcomed in, and often without feeling at ease. I know what helped me relax into language. I also know what felt terrible.
That combination — professional insight and personal experience — was enough to start a different kind of business.
We only work with a small number of carefully matched people each year. But this page isn’t only for those people. It’s here because choosing well matters — and because noticing discomfort early can save you from the wrong experience later.
How to use this page
This page isn’t designed to tell you what to choose.
It’s here to help you notice what matters to you — especially if you’re trying to avoid pressure, misalignment, or an experience you’ll later have to recover from.
You don’t need to read everything.
You can start with whatever question feels most relevant right now.
“I wish I’d known sooner”
Something we hear often is:
“I wish I’d found out about you sooner.”
Or, “I wish I’d known this option existed when I was learning Spanish / French / English.”
Many people assume that one language holiday is much like another — that the main decision is simply which city to go to.
But the differences between programmes are often structural, not cosmetic. They affect how supported you feel, how much pressure you carry, and whether learning actually helps you use the language in real life.
This page exists because some people choose experiences that are ineffective or misaligned without realising there were alternatives. In some cases, people are made vulnerable by the very fact that they need to improve their English, and the system does not always protect them.
I’ve seen this from the inside. I’ve worked in commercial language schools, and I’ve known people whose job it was to manage expectations that should never have been created in the first place — including telling clients on arrival that their accommodation wasn’t even in the same city as their course.
The pieces collected here are here to make those differences more visible — so you can choose with clarity, not hindsight.
Practical Tips and Guides
→ Getting Started
This overview article helps you pause before comparing schools, and think through what you want from a language holiday — including how you like to learn, travel, and use English — so later decisions are clearer and more confident.
→ Before You Compare Language Holidays: What to Consider First
→ How to Compare Language Holiday Quality
Many language holidays promise similar things — immersion, confidence, authenticity — but deliver very different experiences. This article looks at why quality can be hard to judge, and why marketing alone rarely tells you what you need to know.
Using a simple, practical metaphor, it offers clear ways to compare language holiday offers and identify meaningful differences, so you can make a more informed choice.
→ Choosing a Language Course Holiday in Scotland (and beyond)
If you already know where you want to learn English, the next challenge is choosing the right kind of course. Marketing language often looks similar across providers, while the learner experience can be very different.
Using Scotland as a concrete example, this article offers practical questions to help you look past images and promises, understand what’s really on offer, and choose a language holiday that supports both learning and wellbeing.
If you’re trying to avoid choosing the wrong format
→ Do You Need an English Teacher or a Coach?
Teaching and coaching support learning in different ways. One focuses on instruction and structure; the other on practice, feedback, and developing confidence through use.
Using the metaphor of a drawing class, this article explores how these approaches feel in practice — and how choosing between a teacher or a coach depends on where you are, what you’re aiming for, and how you learn best.
→ What Does Language Coaching Feel Like?
Coaching is often described in abstract terms, but it’s easier to understand through experience. Using a short story about hillwalking in Scotland, this article explores how coaching works in practice — responding to the situation, offering support when needed, and enabling people to continue under their own steam.
→ When Not to Take a Language Homestay in the UK
Language homestays appeal to many people looking for something more personal than a classroom. This piece explores when that model works — and when it can quietly add pressure, especially for professionals.
→ How Much Class Size Matters to Your English
As learners become more proficient, progress depends less on new input and more on time to speak, respond, and be responded to.
At higher levels, large groups limit this. Talk time is shared, feedback is delayed, and conversation tends to simplify. Smaller groups allow longer turns, more responsive interaction, and space to notice how language is actually being used.
This article looks at how class size affects learning at different stages — and why scale becomes a more significant factor as learners move beyond beginner level.
→ When Is Language Immersion the Right Choice for Beginners
This piece explores how immersion affects beginners, and the conditions under which it supports — or hinders — early progress.
→ Is an English Immersion Holiday Right for Your Family?
Family-based English immersion raises different questions from individual courses, particularly around balance, attention, and learning quality. Some programmes struggle to accommodate both children’s needs and adults’ professional goals at the same time.
This article explores how family immersion works in practice, and how creating the right conditions for children can also support parents’ confidence, focus, and progress in English — without compromising seriousness or quality.
→ Immersion Courses for English: How to Choose Well
Immersion courses for English can be structured in very different ways. Some rely heavily on classroom time, while others emphasise learning through daily life, interaction, and real-world use.
This article takes a broad, practical look at how immersion courses are designed, what “immersion” can mean in practice, and how to compare different models — with links to help you identify the type of immersion experience that suits you best.
→ The Blue Noun Pedagogy
This page focuses on choosing well.
If you’re comparing different English learning approaches, we’ve broken down our pedagogy to show the strengths and limitations of four established methods, and explain why — and how — we combine them. Understanding how approaches work individually and in combination can help you judge whether this model is right for you.
Getting the Location Right
→ (Part 1) Should You Choose Urban or Rural?
Urban or rural — which suits you better?
This piece looks at how location shapes a language holiday, including common myths about “the best” places to learn English, and what to consider when choosing between city-based and rural experiences.
→ (Part 2) What’s Great About a Small-Town Language Holiday
When a smaller setting makes a difference.
As a companion to our urban–rural comparison, this piece looks more closely at small-town language holidays and the conditions they create for learning, pace, and everyday English use.
If you’re worried about comfort, pressure, or belonging
→ You Don’t Have to Learn British Culture to Learn English
English is used globally, across many cultures and contexts. Yet some language courses present British culture as an essential part of learning the language.
This article explores that assumption. It looks at how English can be learned and used effectively without adopting a narrow cultural frame — and why separating language from national identity can make learning more inclusive, flexible, and relevant.
Green Flags for Choosing Your Language Course
→ Sincerity
Learning feels different when the people involved have chosen to be there. Small, human gestures of care build trust — and that trust is what allows real conversation, and confident English, to emerge.
→ Sincerity in Language Education | Why You Need it to Progress
About Results
→ What is Language Immersion & Does it Work?
Language immersion is one of the most talked-about ideas in English learning — and one of the least clearly explained.
This article looks at what language immersion actually means, how it works in practice, and whether it really helps adults learn English. If you’re unsure what “immersion” involves, or sceptical about whether it’s effective at all, this is the place to start.
→ Can a Holiday ‘Fix’ Your English?
Your English isn’t broken — but not all travel helps it equally.
This article compares three common language travel options and looks at how effective each really is for improving English.
→ The Ultimate Language Freedom is Not Fluency
Too often, fluency is sold as the ultimate goal of learning English.
But fluency alone doesn’t solve the problem if you still feel anxious, rigid, or disconnected from your real voice.
