I came in expecting to suggest Io, but it looks like somebody picked it. Seems like the people in your course have a genuine interest in programming, the same can't be said about most of the people in my courses.

Try something like K, a very terse APL descendant with no loops. KDB is built on top of it, and from what I'm told there are only a few programmers who actively use it and they make some good money. The Kx Systems web site doesn't have much to offer, but no stinking loops (http://www.nsl.com/) will point you to all the stuff you need to find.