I would recommend having an instructor with good English. I went to St Anton with three friends, all good skiers, who deposited me at the nursery slope every morning then disappeared until dinner time. For the first few days I was progressing well with a British instructor. Then suddenly he was called away and was replaced with a 19 yo Austrian girl who liked to laugh a lot and who normally taught tiny tots (i.e. children with no fear). She immediately took us to an almost vertical blue run and told us (my class of about 10) to follow her, laughing and smiling the whole time but unable to understand any of our questions. We were still snowploughing at this point and very slow to manoeuvre so the result was that half my class went down the slope on their bottoms and several of the girls took off their skis and dragged them behind them as they were so terrified. One poor chap slipped half off the piste and we had to haul him back on. This was very dangerous and traumatic! I since learnt that St Anton has some of the most challenging slopes in Europe...so not the best for beginners anyway :)
