Who Takes an English Holiday in Scotland?
Most of my language holiday guests arrive feeling ashamed of their English level. They’ve spent years studying English in classrooms, but it still doesn’t feel natural or confident. What they don’t realise is how normal that is. Classroom learning can’t give you the real experiences your brain needs to trust the language. That’s why we focus on tiny, joyful details mixed with real, gentle practice—because that’s how English becomes part of you.
This blog shares a detail of my language holidays – where we source our milk.
At first glance, it doesn’t seem like anything you need to know, right?
But it’s 1 tiny detail in many, in what feels like an abundant and glorious holiday.
Join me in exploring how such details matter to your English holiday in Scotland – and the real language transformations they bring.
If you’ve ever felt your English slip away in a classroom, or worried you’d never find the courage to speak it freely, this blog is for you
Gorgeous Gigha Milk
You can now taste rich, milk from the Island of Gigha in the Inner Hebrides for our communal breakfasts.
The Wee Isle Dairy is a farmer-owned dairy that supplies independently in a period in which all other dairy farmers serve the supermarkets. The cows free roam over parts of the island.
(Really, if reincarnation is a thing, I want to come back as a Gigha cow).
As well as supporting high-quality animal welfare, the Wee Island Dairy’s milk is delicious. If you are old enough to have tasted milk before the pasteurisation laws came in, it tastes like ‘proper’ milk. Not that it’s unpasteurised. It is, but they use a slower process that makes it a more expensive product – but richer and creamier in taste.
(It’s quite shocking to think that we all just got used to inferior milk that suits the supermarkets to sell).
Fortunately, our language hub has a farm shop a few miles away which stocks the Wee Island Dairy’s milk (it’s also where I get my weekly organic veggie box to share with you too), so you too can taste the difference.
It’s an Ingredient in Feeling You Belong Speaking English
What if this holiday wasn’t just a break, but the start of your English feeling right, like the long-lost taste of proper milk?
Like Proust’s madeleine, this 1 taste can bring a sense of belonging — proof that small details can awaken something deep inside you.
When your experience is memorable,
Your English is memorable.
My Story | Why I Care About Details
I had a friend who died a year ago.
An artist, activist, and writer. He’s in my mind because I worked with him at an arts organisation (me freelance, him the boss), and he was a pain in the ass about perfection.
He needed to get every detail exactly right, and when you are paid by job, not per hour, that gets frustrating.
I didn’t know at the time, but working for him taught me that being carefree and irreverent enough to counter mainstream traditions and unhealthy norms is not to be unrigorous (‘no done is better than perfect‘ talk with him).
His life’s work was to revision a whole town, where every person and bit of wildlife mattered. His work was precise yet the results – his artwork – looked carefree, simple and spontaneous, but really he was a buffer to all that was hard and cruel and unfair. Being a buffer permitted poetic ideas to take form as if they had no restraints, no anchors – it was glorious.
I feel like that’s what many great artists do – process problems, then offer you a ‘what if’ that you can get lost in, and believe in – sometimes just for a tiny moment.
At other times, it changes your soul.
Asking What ‘if’ About English
My first career informs now my holidays – the things I now ‘make’ and ‘curate.’ I still imagine what’s possible – only now I’m using my creativity to unlock your English.
I can protect you
I know how to be a buffer to the frustration and angst you have picked up in your years of English learning and using (and guide you through).
I'll inspire you
I’m the creator who investigates what’s necessary to get you a language transformation and says, what if.
Designing a Language Holiday in Scotland
→ What if the magic of Perthshire’s local woodland sauna can erode the residual stress built up in your body?
→ What if you combine the elation of an osprey diving for fish with English conversation? (Will that make your English feel more real when you need to make a presentation?)
→ What if you get the time you need to rest in nature and recharge while building your real-world language experience?
→ That fear you have of speaking English in front of ‘native speakers’? What if you meet someone in our local community that you click with, and two years later, you are still corresponding weekly?
(Will you still perceive the difference between native and non native speakers?)
(Imagine not!)
That’s Not ‘Work’
You might be worried that such an English language holiday sound a bit ‘easy.’
You might have learned that you need to be sweating in a classroom to learn.
Rest assured, on our language holidays in Scotland, your experiences are balanced together like a well-curated exhibition.
Our years of classroom teaching that is the invisible armature in every conversation.
What if You Fall in Love With English?
I know my English holidays here in Scotland uniquely transform how people feel about English.
They reduce the stress and Foreign Language Anxiety that so many people live with and don’t know they can fix without shame.
It’s not just a holiday.
It’s a fabulous, feel-good hug of a holiday, full of community, landscape and great real-world conversation.
It’s a fresh start for your English.
And the beginning of a lifetime of loving English.
You just need to believe in what-ifs.
Remember how it felt to be afraid of your own English—and then imagine returning home with a new taste for confidence, built from a hundred tiny moments of speaking, listening, and feeling at ease.
Book a Zoom Call to chat about how I can help your English this summer.
Language Tips | Making Suggestions
The structures “What if…” and “How about…” are both used to make suggestions in English. They are both found often in real-world English, and I practice them throughout my language coaching holidays.
When you say “What if…”, you are asking someone to think about a possible idea or situation. For example, “What if we meet tomorrow?” suggests meeting tomorrow.
“How about…” is also used to propose an idea, but it often sounds a little more friendly or casual. For example, “How about going to the park?”
Both expressions are followed by a verb: with “What if” you usually use the simple present (What if we go…), and with “How about” you use the -ing form (How about going…).
We often use these structures to make suggestions politely because they feel softer—it is easier for the listener to accept, build on, or reject the idea without feeling uncomfortable.
“What if…” can also be used to imagine a future possibility without worrying if it is realistic, for example, “What if we could travel anywhere?” This helps you explore ideas beyond criticism or feasibility.
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