All safety equipment is provided, along with some canoes.

The students are given tasks to complete and are encouraged to compete in various challenges and races. We also make sure that they get in the water too!

The activity takes place in Brixham which is a pretty fishing village on the tip of Torbay. After tiring themselves out on the water, we find that our students are usually keen to try out the traditional English meal of fish and chips, which of course is nice and fresh, having been caught recently by the local fishermen.

One of the activities that fits this description perfectly is our dance class. It’s ideal for encouraging those of a more shy disposition to open up, let their hair down and ‘boogie on down!’ As you will see in the videos below, the dance instructor is English and delivers his instructions in English.

Of course, another advantage of these activities is that they encourage our students to make new friends and bond with their fellow language course participants. Dancing has probably been a part of social culture for almost as long as eating therefore it is an excellent way for our students to let their hair down and unwind, thus helping to make their experience an enjoyable and productive one.

If you would like to know more about English language course, please just use the contact form that you can see on the right hand side of each page, or give us a telephone call on the number shown. Our contact page can also be found by clicking here.

Our English students are given tasks that involve finding ways as a team to cross the river and we encourage them to use these team-building exercises as a fun way to practice their English language skills. They also get plenty of time to relax and enjoy sitting in waterfalls, climbing up waterfalls and jumping into the river from the edge or from rope swings.

There are quite a few waterfalls and other interesting views which give the students the chance to brush up on their photography skills and take some pictures as mementoes of the great time they have in England. If they are lucky, they might also get to catch sight of one of the steam trains that run on the Plym Valley Railway.

As with all of our activities, we find that combining fun, exercise, team-building and social skills into our itinerary provides the perfect contrast to plain, boring old language lessons. Not only do our students learn to speak better English, but they also gain confidence and develop as a person. We feel that this puts our language courses a peg above the rest and we are proud of what we achieve.

If you agree with us about the benefits of an Interactive Travel English language course, please feel free to use our contact form (on the right of the page) or give us a telephone call to find out more about our courses, prices, dates and anything else that you would like to know. We are particularly keen to expand the growing amount of nationalities that come on our courses, so please come and talk to us.

But it’s not all just water based fun. Just to the North-West of our language school location  is Dartmoor, which is a large area of moorland with it’s famous Tors (exposed granite hilltops). It is a protected area which has National Park status and it is a must-see when in Devon if you’re the type who likes to don the walking boots and breathe some really fresh air.

Although this is not really one of our water based activities, there are plenty of rivers and streams on Dartmoor as well as some bogs. The area gets much higher rainfall than the surrounding areas. There are plenty of historically interesting sites to be found on Dartmoor, which of course gives us something to aim for and something for our students to try and find as part of a challenge. For example, there are around 5000 stone hut circles dating from the Bronze age as well as Kistvaens, which are Neolithic tombs.

There are of course lots of myths and legends related to Dartmoor, which provides us with plenty of material for our students to learn about. Legend has it that Dartmoor is inhabited by pixies, along with a headless horseman, a large black dog and also a large pack of spectral hounds. It may sound like a load of made-up rubbish, but once out on the moors with no civilisation to be soon for miles around, these myths always seem to spring back to the front of the mind!

There is another tale of ‘the beast of Dartmoor’ which apparently is a large wildcat as well the ‘hairy hands’ which are alleged to attack visitors to Dartmoor. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was apparently inspired to write ‘The Hound Of The Baskervilles’ by Dartmoor and it’s legends.

As with most of our activities, our Dartmoor visits are great fun, a learning experience, a chance to get some vigorous physical exercise, an opportunity to take part in fun challenges and above all a memorable experience that typifies the English experience.

We have an instructor who gives the instructions in English and the students get involved in a variety of movements that involve hand-clapping, dancing in circles and generally ‘whooping it up’!

It’s difficult not to smile when you inevitably get one part of it hopelessly wrong and our students always enjoy the experience and also end up totally worn out! We find that this type of activity is the perfect antidote to the difficulties of getting to grips with the complexities of a new language.

Many new friendships are made regardless of the fact that a few toes get stepped upon! It’s also a direct contrast to some of the more physically and mentally challenging activities that we provide so we feel that it adds to the perfect balance of fun, education and personal development aspects of our English language courses in England.

As a famous lady once said, ‘you can dance, for inspiration.’ We agree whole-heartedly Madonna. ‘Get into the groove!’

Boxing is all about fitness, discipline and confidence – not unsimilar to the attributes required for good language skills. The fitness aspect is simply preparation for good boxing. If you are not ring-fit, it will let you down and you will fail. Similarly if someone doesn’t take the time to learn the basics of a new language and understand the fundamentals they will make their task of successful communication a lot more difficult.

Discipline is of course a very useful life-skill and is necessary for aquiring any new ability, such as learning to speak English. Confidence is vital in helping a student to advance their language skills. This is even more important when part of that learning process involves practicing the new language in the host country of that language,which is precisely what our students are doing.

This is why we focus our courses around building confidence and developing confidence within a group of people whilst engaging in physical activity. We enjoy nothing more than seeing one of our students ‘come out of their shell’ within the group or in a situation that previously would have intimidated them.

You can also see more of our English language students having fun in the boxing gym by clicking the following link to view our boxercise class video.

We are keen to connect with other organisations that are perhaps already sending groups of students to England to learn to speak English to see if we can provide the type of learning environment that will suit their aims. If this is you, please use our contact form (to the right of the page) or give us a telephone call and we will provide you with as much information as you need as well as prices, dates and testimonials from satisfied customers of ours if necessary.

This is a great bonding activity which involves encouragement from the team in order to gently nudge the participants to try and overcome their fears by progressively jumping from a little higher each time. The combination of adrenaline, salt water and sea air is a healthy and refreshing combination which is guaranteed to leave our students fulfilled but exhausted and is undoubtedly a memorable experience for everyone involved.

We believe that personal development is a vital part of education and that these type of experiences will be invaluable in a person’s future challenges. Youngsters spend much of the early part of their lives in education and we believe that by combining development and education with having fun is the very best way to increase retention of information and to help them to learn a new language while their mind is focused on the fun aspect.

Although there is a lot of information and there are many photographs on this website we feel that videos of the activities on our courses are a great way to give someone the big picture of what our English language courses are all about. Here we present some video clips of the students enjoying some of the activities we provide on our language courses.

On this particular page we have a video of our students and student leaders getting fit by doing a ‘boxercise’ class – (exercises typically used to help boxers stay fit.)

The students use safety ropes at all times, although it’s easy to forget this when you’re actually up there! We like to encourage our students to take on challenges that push their limits somewhat, but at the same time the student is free to decide which challenges they want to attempt and at what sort of height they are comfortable with.

This tightrope challenge is great for developing the strength of the team as they are encouraged to help each other and provide moral support for anyone who is feeling the effects of vertigo. There is a wonderful sense of achievement to be gained by completing tasks that you never thought you would be able to achieve previously, by using the encouragement of others to surpass your own perceived boundaries.

Here is the first video clip, filmed in beautiful woods deep in the heart of South Devon.

In this next video, the first bridge is a kind of ’stepping stone’ type affair and the second one is a very long traditional rope bridge. Due to the length of this bridge, it is prone to swaying quite a lot, which can be ‘fun’…

In this tree-top video we have one of our English language course students (or could it perhaps be someone old enough to know better?) sliding down the zip line in the tree tops. It’s only a short video, but as the person zip lining is also holding the camera, you get the full ‘zip liner’s eye view’ – it’s almost as if you’re really there yourself, zipping through the tree tops!

These are just a few of the many activities that we encourage our students to participate in, in order to build their confidence, have fun and learn to speak English.

First of all (as you can see above) they are given lessons in tying knots (in English). The activity takes place near Brixham, which is traditionally a fishing town – so being able to tie knots is a part of the local culture.

The climbers are attached to a safety rope, which allows them to hang upside down without fear of falling. As you will see from the photos below, the aim is to get everyone to the top, but it is virtually impossible for the whole team to do this without assisting each other at some point – so it’s a great team-building exercise.

There is also a ‘leap of faith’ at the end. Even though the climbers are attached to the safety rope, it still takes some guts to make this jump -

Our students enjoy this activity and as always the instructors are English locals – therefore it’s not just about having fun, being brave and developing team skills – it’s also about learning to speak English.

We would like to expand the amount of students who visit Torquay on our English language courses and we are particularly keen to encourage more visitors from a variety of European countries – which of course would mean a variety of different native languages. If you are looking for a language activity course, or if you are already sending groups over to England to learn to speak English, then we would love to talk to you and see if we can take your students on one of our courses.

If this is the case, please use our contact form (the link is the ‘contact us’ graphic at the top right of the page) and we would love to answer any questions that you have about our English language courses.