Activities

At Oceanside English Academy, we love to create unique activities for students. These are once-in-a-lifetime experiences that also support language learning.

Recent activities included:

  • Cooking a pancake breakfast with real Maple Syrup, a quintessential Canadian food. No visit to Canada is complete without an experience of Maple Syrup!
  • Browsing a famous local specialty food market where goats live on the roof, and ending the day with a visit to an old growth forest with 800+ year old trees.

Because we at OEA love Canada so much, we can’t help but go the extra mile and create special activities. Here is one of the most memorable ones of late:

petermushroom 168x300 ActivitiesChanterelle Mushroom Hunting & Tasting, followed by late fall swimming near Morton Lake

The Chanterelle mushroom is prized by connoisseurs for its golden colour and wild taste. These mushrooms are found in hidden spots near pine trees and only if the weather is moist.

At first, it might seem difficult to find them, but within an hour, our students from Venezuela, Switzerland and Japan caught ‘gold fever’ and quickly filled up a bag, taking turns to gently cut the fresh mushrooms from the soil. We made sure to leave some behind to continue growing, and for other hunters to find.

Now that the mushrooms have been found, what better experience than to fry them up with some garlic, butter and Parmesan cheese on a camp stove at a nearby picnic table?

Mike, one of OEA’s owners, is a trained chef, and came fully prepared to make this happen. He even packed a real pepper mill and fresh baguette.

There is nothing quite as delicious as eating food that you’ve found yourself, in the wild, and certainly very few other places where you can do so.

  • Click here, or on the image of Peter, to see for more photos of Oceanside English Academy’s Great Mushroom Hunt on Morton Lake.

THIS is what we mean by special, and we can’t wait to share more experiences like this with students of OEA.

Swimming at the lake may seem crazy in the cool fall weather, but it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, so ‘why not?’ Yuki and Peter dared each other and had fun shivering and laughing at each other afterwards.

But what about the language learning? So glad you asked.

Here are some of the words, phrases and concepts – beginner, intermediate and advanced – that were learned and practiced, naturally, in the context that called for them:

“I found some!”
“Wow, that is freezing!”
“I’m freezing my butt off!”
“You’re crazy! I can’t believe you’re going swimming!”
“In Switzerland, clear cutting in the forest is illegal.”
“In Venezuela, it’s scary to go into the forest like this. There are lots of snakes.”
“Excuse me, Nature calls.”
“Thank you, that was delicious.”

To take part in once-in-a-lifetime learning adventures like these with us, approximately once a week, and sometimes more, we invite you to browse the rest of the website and click the ‘contact us’ link to register. We can’t wait to welcome you!

More examples of activities we do at Oceanside English Academy, depending on the season:

Kayaking, Coal mining tour, Beach volleyball, Floor hockey, Art gallery tour, Ice skating, Ceramic crafts, Caving, Rock climbing, Horseback riding, Fish hatchery tour, Digging for fossils, Small island tours, Mountain hikes, History museum tour, Farm tours,  Halloween, Christmas, Easter,  Swimming, Rollerblading, Mountain biking, Canoeing, Squash, Zodiac ocean tour, Whale watching, Sailing, Native culture, Skiing/snowboarding, Snow tubing, Golf, Wind surfing, Beach sandcastles, Victoria trip, Mini-golf, Go-carts, Rainforest hikes, Rivers & Lakes, Beachcombing, and more!