A former PE teacher and trainer of football coaches, Mart Nooij has recently been tasked with the project management of setting up a national sports academy in Burkina Faso in West Africa. As Burkina Faso is a former French colony and French is the official language, Mart needed to brush up his French. "My appointment came out of the blue. It looked like the NKS [the Dutch Catholic Sports Federation] responsible for organising this project already had two suitable candidates for this post, but they both had to withdraw at the eleventh hour," explains Mart. While the little French he's had so far has served him well on the football pitch, Mart knew this time he would need to do much better. "For this assignment I will need to work very closely with the local authorities in Ouagadougou [capital city of Burkina Faso], so I've had to learn to speak proper French and come to grips with the "grammar". In search of a language school, Mart explains he could have opted for a residential course, but he didn't want to spend too much time away from home before going to Burkina Faso. Eventually, leafing through the Yellow Pages, Mart found the Alkmaar-based language institute PCI and signed up for a intensive, one-on-one French course for 20 lessons." For Mart to be able to fit the course in with his busy schedule, he has had to work with two French teachers, but this arrangement has worked out fine. "At very short notice PCI's been able to arrange a French course exactly tailored to my needs. And both teachers have done an admirable job in raising my French to a much higher level."