No Classroom English Learning in Scotland
Our English language holidays offer:
1,000 micro-moments of you being you, in English.
This blog is about just one.
It shares a walk along the Muthill (pronounced MYOO-thil /mjuːθɪl/) to Crieff cycle path in Perthshire.
It is written to give you a taste of an English language holiday here in Scotland.
Blue Noun = no classrooms, being outdoors, and ENJOYING exploring in English.
Blue Noun = relaxing, resting, exploring, and talking.
Slow down and let English into your heart.
A Glimpse of a Cycle Path
The sun is shining after a rainy week.
A man walks a dog. We call a comment celebrating the weather to each other: it’s customary but not insincere*.
A farmer ploughs a field, etching almost straight lines across it.
Another sprays a fine mist across a field of grass. You ask why and I realise I don’t know.
I’ll ensure we ask someone who knows as we progress through our week.
The field is probably a grass crop for winter feeds. A fertilizer? Something to control weeds?
Our countryside is picturesque but ultimately it’s working land farmed for food production and profits.
Farmers and non-farmers live lives separated by knowledge, experience and duty.
Would you like to be a farmer? I ask. What would be the advantages and disadvantages?
What experience of farms do you have?
English Conversations
We discover that we share a bit of guilt about our ‘soft’ job and ‘soft’ environmentalist views.
“I recently heard farmers use GPS to get straighter plough lines”.
Is this tractor pinging a signal into space, we wonder.
Craft and technology: great conversations which we explore by visiting artist and maker studios around Perthshire.
There’s a youngster who has lost interest in her scooter and has settled in the sun to make daisy chains.
There are daisies printed on her helmet, and her stripy t-shirt echoes the furrows of the fields around her. It’s enough to confuse the ant which marches up her arm.
She ignores us completely, but this tiny creature is enough to send her with a yelp, back on her scooter.
We rest on a bench and sip tea from china cups.
The bench has been repaired, probably a Young Farmer in the JAC.
We’re so used to broken street furniture not getting fixed, it’s a treat to find that that out here, it’s well tended.
What are some groups for adolescents in your country?
Who looks after public paths?
This cycle path is only half complete ( we review the Present Perfect with you barely noticing).
We walk to where the path stops, unceremoniously, and turn around and walk back.
If it were complete, the kids in Muthill could safely cycle to their high school in Crieff. The local community has spent years fundraising for this. Without noticing, I listen and check that you are using the 2nd Conditional right (you are).
We talk about how infrastructure is changing in your home town, how kids get to school and local activism in your community.
Walking back, we see deer tracks on the ploughed earth that weren’t there when we first passed.
Let’s Talk!
Book a video chat to meet the teaching team and ask any questions you have about our holidays.
Update
It’s the last Sunday in August and cyclists are hurtling along the cycle path.
The event is the Muthill Sportive: a fundraiser for building the second part of the path (it doesn’t reach Crieff yet).
We’re in the ‘easy’ category, dad and myself (we finish just 10 seconds apart).
Outdoor Language Practice
Our October offer is all about being OUTSIDE exploring autumn.
This still means lots of conversations – but the balance is nature first, and English second.
We’ll be doing feel-good activities that recharge our soul (to help prepare for winter).
Take Our Autumn Adventure
Further Information
Related Posts (for more of a taste of what our language holidays)
- What’s a Typical Day on a Language Holiday
- A Portrait of a Loch | English Language Holiday in Scotland
