Anne De Kleermaker

Coach for Dutch and English, Anne has coached language learners at all managerial levels, from the shop-floor to the board, for almost 25 years and additionally speaks and writes French, German, Swedish, Italian, Greek and Russian at various levels of proficiency. She says:

“Architectuur is een van mijn grote passies. Daarom is het voor mij steeds weer een ontzaglijk genoegen om te zien hoe een student steen voor steen een taal leert opbouwen, hoe hij of zij de schoonheid van een taal begint aan te voelen.

Het boeit me telkens opnieuw mateloos: overbrengen hoe een taal de wereld die ze verwoordt, weerspiegelt – in ritme, klank en vorm. Als de student dat voor zichzelf ontdekt, is het welslagen van het leertraject in zicht.

Zelf reis ik graag en veel – nieuwe werelden, nieuwe mensen. Zoveel nieuwe talen om te leren en te begrijpen. Met Engels kom je overal, zegt men, maar ver kom je niet. Als je het hart van een streek en cultuur wilt kennen, moet je de taal leren!”

Les langues et Vous, Étudiant


Dear Language Learner,

Our promise as language learning coaches to you is: we will help you become as autonomous – comfortable – proficient as possible – as early as possible.

We will do so by helping you • communicate as much as possible, • study as much as necessary, and • receive guidance as much as you wish.

Practically we will always start our commitment with an in-depth conversation
• about your needs and goals, wishes and concerns,
• about your target of mastery and your time-frame for reaching it,
• about your present language skills,
• about your commitments that will impact your learning track,
• about how we can design together a clever plan aimed at your final goal, suited to your learning style and flexibly adjusted to your “life's schedule”.

As soon as we decide to work together as learner and coach, we will then co-create with you an extremely rewarding experience that will get you where you want and at the same time greatly enrich you - and which we call your Language Learning Adventure.

In accordance with the philosophy embodied in our name,
• we will Listen to you when you communicate and practice, speak and write,
• we will Tutor your self-study while you “fight with the language”, and
• we will Counsel you about the people and culture it represents.

You can read more about our approach in the essay Language Learning Coaching below. Elsewhere on this site you will find links to other essays and examples, as well as to specifics about our unique products and services.

However please, explore this site as you wish – and feel free to mail LTC for more information, or call us personally at +32 475 267 341.

Tony Robberechts

Coach for French and English, Tony has coached language learners at all managerial levels, from the shop-floor to the board, for 40 years and additionally speaks and writes Dutch, German, Italian, Russian and Bahasa Indonesia at various levels of proficiency. He says:

“La connaissance de langues étrangères (plus spécifiquement celles d'Europe occidentale) m'a toujours fasciné. J'en ai donc appris quelques-unes et, ensuite, je me suis mis à les enseigner, en Australie, dans des écoles secondaires, et, plus tard, à partir de 1990, en Belgique avec LTC.

En calculant bien, cela fait 40 ans que j'enseigne, principalement le français et l'anglais. Et je puis dire que je n'ai jamais donné une seule leçon de la même façon. Le sujet à enseigner peut être le même, la manière de le transmettre n'a jamais été pareille. Tout simplement parce que la personne (ou le groupe) devant moi est unique; elle (il) n'a pas la même réceptivité aux langues, ni la même connaissance préalable de celles-ci. C'est une chose qu'il faut ressentir, ce "feeling" de la réceptivité à l'apprentissage d'une langue. J'aurais bien du mal à l'expliquer ou à le définir.

Outre la langue que l'on enseigne, il me semble important d'y ajouter l'aspect culturel, l'histoire, les traditions, les comportements, les différences "provinciales", bref, ce qu'on qualifie généralement de "culture générale". Et je n'hésite pas à demander à l'étudiant(e) de rechercher (par exemple sur Internet) de simples et brefs renseignements sur un personnage célèbre, un événement important ou un lieu historique.

Une dernière chose: j'ai remarqué que les livres de grammaire ont tendance à expliquer tel ou tel point grammatical dans son entièreté (règle générale, exceptions, cas différents, renvois à d'autres usages) ce qui prête trop souvent à confusion. Personnellement, je préfère introduire un sujet grammatical partiellement, en simplifiant la règle, quitte à "mentir" quelque peu, et l'approfondir graduellement par après, en étapes espacées.”

Language learning coaching

No journey without a plan

Learning a language is an adventure of personal development, changing us in the process while we focus on the targeted skill. On this track we are greatly helped by a coach who provides us with advice, insight and support.

When you embark on this adventure, LTC-Circuit's coaches will do that for you – in many ways.

No journey without a plan! That is why as soon as you voice your interest in a language-learning experience, we will assist you in drawing up your roadmap – sounding your goals, assessing your skills and designing a learning programme to achieve your aim.

At the arrival, and at all important junctures of the road to it, this roadmap will help you review and assess the journey you have accomplished.

We call this roadmap your Language-Learning Adventure Plot, and we will create it together, designing it at the start and reviewing it whenever it is necessary.

With your Language-Learning Adventure Plot in your hands, you can then confidently start out on your journey.

Listening to your song

Hundreds of years of combined experience of the coaches allied to our network have brought to light that the first and foremost requirement of learning a language is sufficient practising opportunity.

We all know that we can't learn to swim without jumping into the water and actually swimming – …although closely monitored by a surf lifesaver!

Speaking a language is a skill. And we will not adequately learn this skill unless exercising it is part of the learning process.

All sportsmen and artists know that.

As your coaches we will always see to it that you have the necessary practising opportunity required by your skill level of the moment.

We will imagine with you means to tap this practising resource in your working environment, by helping you negotiate it with your colleagues.

We will brainstorm with you about how you can enhance your exposure to the language in your private life, your leisure activities, and your family.

We will support you while you are in intensive-training native speaking environment, as in Bed & Breakfast arrangements or when staying with families.

We will ourselves be available to you as sparring partners in your practice – from your first steps, acting as your caring parent, to your longest running-track strides, cheering you on as your demanding sports coach.

But while we do so – we will abide by the first principle of our coaching creed: we will listen to you – always – and you will speak.

Wiping off your sweat

The second requirement of progress is that you need to study.

Learning a language as an adult requires us to feed our brain with information: what the actual words are that name the components of reality, both things and abstractions, and how those words can be aligned correctly to build meaningful utterances.

Feed your brain with information – in such a way that you retain it and can always resort to it whenever you need.

Our experience has made us experts in choosing learning tools that are both intrinsically state-of-the-art and adjusted to your preferred learning styles.

While excellent tools are intended to be used as stand-alone instruments, we know, as coaches, that the gentle but determined prodding of a coach can help you keep the studying promise you made to yourself.

Schedules are terribly demanding – and yet, as language learners we all need the discipline of confronting ourselves with the facts of the language learnt.

Therefore we take it upon us to tutor you whenever you need - on a regular basis and on call: we will explain, prompt and support.

Beaming you up

While we are in the midst of our learning adventure, on our journey through occasionally rugged territory, we regularly want to be pulled up by the helicopter, getting an overview of where we are – how far we have travelled – how far we still have to go.

As language learning coaches we know that this is the part where our expert help is most needed.

We can see where you are with respect to your original destination, whether you are straying a little or progressing on target – as we can both encourage you in the process and keep an eye on your ultimate goal.

That is why we specifically ensure the third key requirement for your success: to provide you with counsel on the shape and meaning of your adventure.

As you imagine and as you may read elsewhere on this site (see Toward Trans-Cultural Excellence) learning a language is also an experience of getting familiar with the culture conveyed by and embodied in the language.

From the spaceship you want to get the wider picture – how you fit into the landscape, the land, the continent.

Therefore an essential part of our coachship is to counsel you on the culture of the men and women who speak the language as their native tongue, both embodying and carrying their customs, preferences, interests, expectations, focuses, issues.

As such we are also cultural consultants and help you integrate the day-to-day challenge of your learning trip into the aims of a wider adventure of human growth.

Helping you spiral towards mastery

Listening, Tutoring and Counselling: a process that not only describes the overall macro-components of your learning adventure, but also “microscopic” aspects of it.

It is indeed a continuous process, evolving during the whole adventure of our coaching you.

At each of your utterances – from the first tentative sentences of the beginner to the full-fledged presentation or conference of the advanced learner – we will listen to what you are saying, tutor you by helping you improve the utterance in reference to knowledge acquired through your study, and counsel you by making you aware of how this specific improvement can enhance the quality of all your utterances.

In one word: we do not only point out to you the learning point, we help you internalise both its specifics and the generalisations it allows.

By doing so, we almost “fractally” help you build up your skills from the smaller scales of words to the larger scale of heated exchanges and fluent discourse.

The Listening -> Tutoring -> Counselling circle thus gradually expands into an ever-larger spiral, spurring you on to mastery.

Coach for Arabic, Ali is founder and director of the Brussels-based Centre Culturel Arabe, and visiting language professor for Arabic at the College of Europe. He graduated from the Music Department of the Baghdad Fine Arts Institute, from the Political Science Department at Baghdad University, as well as from the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Art History - Musicology and in Work Sciences (postgraduate cycle). He has introduced Europeans to Arabic language and culture for more than 20 years. He says:

Doug Swan

Coach and Business English Trainer. (M.A. Management (with Enterprise); Post-Grad. Dip. HR Management – Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh).

After a long career in the corporate world (Consultant, H.R. specialist), Doug has been working as a freelance trainer in the areas of Business English & communication skills for over 20 years. During this time he has worked with a number of prestigious industrial and government clients providing coaching and language training for business people at all levels of the organisation. His work has taken him to live and work in the U.S.A., Turkey, Germany and Belgium in addition to his native Scotland. At present, Doug is delivering residential Business English seminars for Siemens AG in the U.K. and Germany, and in addition establishing a series of seminars in the picturesque Scottish Borders. He says:

“Having spent the first part of my career in the business community, I am acutely aware of the special needs, aims and challenges of corporate clients.

In essence, effective Business English is closely tied in with effective business policy and, because of this, I place great importance on communication and “soft” skills. Furthermore, in partnership with students, I seek to find the balance between correctness and effectiveness in language learning.

In my experience, success in a business negotiation (however it is measured) will owe more to tone, style, behaviour and the effective and timely use of a conditional sentence than grammatical accuracy alone.

Grammar and functional language (e.g. for negotiations, presentations etc.), are integral elements of a comprehensive Business English programme but there is also a need to focus on skills such as relationship building, dealing with conflict, diversity tolerance and self assessment in order to equip the language learner to deal confidently with the shifting demands of business management and leadership.”

How you can reach us


• We are located at:

LTC-Circuit bvba-sprl
Rue Willemsstraat 14
B-1210 Brussels Belgium

• You can send us your comments and requests for further information by e-mailing us at this e-address

• We will answer your calls at number +32 475 267 341.

Unique products and services


• a proprietary intake interview relating multilingualism and motivator sets,

• streamlined oral testing protocols and validated knowledge level tests,

• needs analyses correlating professional performance needs and gradable language skills,

• a grading scale based on measurable linguistic skills complexity (correlated with the European Common Reference Framework),

• our Trans-Cultural Excellence Rating instrument for assessing multilingualism,

• a programme design orchestrating all key parameters of the learning process,

• tools for organisation-wide language skills and talent management, adequately addressing level and learning style variances within a learner's population,

• language coaching process steering tools relating job complexity, multilingualism and motivator sets,

• WOORD*VORM (5 books, 10 audio CDs): a no-frills, highly focused, learning-efficient primer for Dutch, that targets the first 2,000 words as well as basic-to-intermediate-level grammar,

• comprehensive programme assessment tools involving all key parameters of a 360° analysis

• …

Further reading: essays and examples


• A Mission Essay

• The schoolkid kit

• “All this is marketing”: Coaching is co-creation or The proof of the pudding is in the eating

• Assessing the Learner's needs and skills

• How we plot the Learner's Language learning Adventure

• Plan thoroughly and implement flexibly

• Plurilingualism is key but also the key

• 7 Managers are attending a meeting or Plurilingualism in meetings works

• Assignment: Auditing an Audit Department

• Assignment: Company-wide progress in Spartan circumstances

• Assignment: Company-wide coaching of High Performers

• Assignment: Customer-oriented writing in an insurance department

• Crossing the ultimate frontier: Towards Trans-Cultural Excellence

• Rubbing black and yellow noses

Sites that inspire us


• the site of Terralingua on biological, cultural and linguistic diversity

• the site of EuroCom on the development of intercomprehension among kindred languages

• the site of the Brussels-based non-political, non-religious but cultural Centre Culturel Arabe

• Jan De Visch's site, Connect & Transform, on corporate and personal growth towards complexity