[mhd]

Oberon was actually used in a couple of German universities, not just because of the language, but because of the whole environment (which feels a bit like SmallTalk for bit-twiddlers and -shavers).

Having said that, Oberon is a pretty strict and bare language compared to others, e.g. in its current standard, the old structured programming rule of one return statement per function is strictly enforced. Whether that's an advantage for teaching or not, I can't really say.

[PeCaN]

Sometimes I think strict and bare is better, especially for learning. One of the reasons I like C so much is that it makes doing complicated things really hard, so you end up solving problems in simple ways instead. Bare languages really force you to understand and think through your problem.