It will continue living in us, not merely as a wonderful memory but also as received and hopefully still developing English language skills."

So THANK YOU!!!

Helena

"The days in your lovely house were very, very great. Beatrice and Patricia have since your language-training very good results in their English lessons. Thank you very much.

For us it has been a very great holiday and we like you and your family and your school and Ballater very much. I hope we will see each other again."

Very best wishes

Your Family Baumeister Theo, Gabi, Beatrice, Patricia.

To Whom It May Concern:

Re : Schoolhouse English Language

"It is my pleasure to be able to provide a reference for Schoolhouse English language school following the good work that they performed for OIL Limited when the company introduced Portuguese seafarers into its fleet of offshore supply vessels operating out of the UK.

OIL had taken the decision, against a background of a declining number of UK seafarers, to introduce Portuguese seafarers into it's fleet because it was felt that they had the appropriate competences for the role required of them.

Obviously safety was paramount and it was considered imperative that aside from technical competency, any seafarers selected either had a good command of the English language or the potential to learn the language in a brief period of time.

Alan and Cathy produced a language training programme specifically aimed at the offshore support vessel industry, their coursework including illustrations of situations and equipment onboard that are unique to offshore support vessels.

The programme was not only geared to delivering the language teaching but also included a testing cycle so that the progress of individual students could be monitored. This not only enabled the training to be modified accordingly but also provided data on the progress of the students for myself as Personnel Manager.

I am very pleased to say that considering the logistics involved in the project (the training was across a fleet of vessels operating in diverse locations on erratic schedules, combined with a series of short residential courses at the Language School) the course was very successful.

The results surpassed all our expectations and can be evidenced by the fact that despite OIL Limited no longer being in existence, the majority of the seafarers who passed the course are still employed in the industry by a variety of owners and are totally integrated into UK crewed vessels.

Because of the positive, enthusiastic attitude of Alan and Cathy we had very few problems with co-operation from the vessel crews or anybody else involved in the project.

I can thoroughly recommend the English Language School to individuals or to companies who wish to embark upon an English language course. I can also highly recommend the hospitality that Alan and Cathy provide at their language school in Ballater, a better location or atmosphere for studying, you would be hard pressed to find."

Neil Carrington