Intention Setting Workshop

One forthcoming English immersion week begins July 4th.

Election Day!

This blog is about creating an event around the UK election: to give one L2 English user an authentic cultural immersion English course.

Oh, and you are all invited!

The Morning After The Night Before

canoeing for English language activities page

A Bit of UK Background | We Don’t Know What (If) We’ll Be Celebrating

Pols are predicting the end to a 14-year Conservative rule in Westminster – with most most previous Tory voters swinging left to Labour or swinging more extreme right.

However, the situation in Scotland is less clear.

We also have had a long incumbent party, the SNP, for 17 years.

Like the Tories, they have disenchanted many core voters through the alleged corruption of key figures.

Whatever happens, we (the nation/community) will be needing conversation.

As individuals, we’ve been asking what we want our country to be like.

Let’s make space to ask ourselves the same question.

sunflowers at language school door - for why choose a non corporate language school

When your experience is memorable
Your English is memorable

Getting the News

Being in a country whilst news is breaking is a powerful immersion experience.

Cultural memories become part of your story.

At Blue Noun, our language holidays are not about knowing more words, rather, they are about feeling at one with your English.

“It’s the difference between wearing a strange pair of shoes (and being conscious of every step) and being in the best, comfiest shoes which seem to roll you along effortlessly. “

Ruth, 2024

How to Share an Election?

I’m thinking ahead to Friday 5th July, and how to engage our English conversation guest in the national zeitgeist.

No matter how the results fall, I know the nation will be bursting to talk.

And we have just the place!

An Intention-Setting Morning

So at Blue Noun, we’re doing what we do best: bringing our community together to share skills, wisdom and friendship.

This is the Event Invitation on Facebook

This event takes place the morning after election day.

Of course, there will be results, predictions and frustrations to discuss (with a cuppa).

But this event is all about celebrating our own agency.

What changes do we want to make happen: for ourselves, our community & our planet.

The Intention Cafe is not for speeches or giving/getting advice.

It’s for creating a space for yourself, to ask who YOU want to be

Let’s doodle, craft, chat and plan as we make time to listen to our subconscious.

To be followed by a (optional) Leap into a Loch* (for anyone needing a purge).

*Loch Earn

About The Intention Café

This is event is modelling the format on the (amazing) Climate Cafe movement.

Climate Cafés bring people together in non-dogmatic conversations where ideas and actions have space to form.

We’ll fire up ‘the Beast’ (our professional coffee machine, and get teapots at the ready.

There will be biscuits, fruit and nibbles provided.

language school coffee machine for Learn English in Scotland.

Language school food and drink for cultural immersion holdiay

Arts & Crafts for Great Mindsets

We’ll have our crafting materials out, for a bit of painting/doodling therapy.

(if you are concentrating on a craft activity, you let your subconscious heal and dream).

anxiety in language learning with creativity

Creative Activity is a Switch to Turn off Anxiety

Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA)

Foreign Language Anxiety is real! Language learning requires risk-taking and learners need to speak even when they are not sure they are correct to improve.

A low-anxiety environment where students feel safe making mistakes is crucial for developing fluency.

A craft workshop not only creates a low-anxiety setting – but craft activities block anxiety.

Creativity and anxiety are like a switch. If one is one, the other is off.