Teaching Staff

Courses are given by qualified, native-speaking instructors with proven experience in varying fields of teaching. Serving as constant points of reference, our teachers’ friendliness and the natural informal atmosphere they establish makes learning a language fun and easy while helping our guests settle into Italian cultural and social life.
Their long experience teaching a foreign language and their specialisation in various sectors allows for in-depth learning of substantial, industry-specific vocabulary in areas such as marketing, business, legal and medical terms.

Viktoria Larsen

Viky was born in Sydney, Australia, and when she was 24 she moved to Italy where she started teaching English shortly after her arrival. She's been working for The Language Center for so long that none of us, including Viky herself, can even remember how long it's actually been! Viky is friendly with a great sense of humour, but above all professional with all her students, whether they're teenagers or top managers; this perfect combination makes her loved and appreciated by both her students and colleagues. Apart from teaching, what she loves doing most is not surfing as you would think seeing as she's Australian, but horse riding in Umbria which is a magical place for such a sport.

Judith Tsanos

Judith was born and raised in New York city and brings us a broad-based corporate experience in sales and marketing, management consulting and new product development. She was also the department chair for the business program at Parson School of Design where she developed many academic programs.
She is married and lives in Umbria with her husband. Her greatest passion is travelling.

Leslie Salvati

Leslie was born in Ohio. She went to Rutger's University and lived and worked in New York City for many years.  She worked for Sotheby's, Simplicity Patterns and finally as a freelance photography producer for various fashion and advertising companies. Since moving to Italy, she has taught Business English for various companies and schools in and around the Perugia and Terni area.  She has taught Social and Business English to executives, top managers and partners of multi-national companies all over Italy.  Presently she lives in Todi and enjoys sports, travelling, gardening and reading but NOT cooking.

Polly Brooks

Polly was born and brought up in London, and still feels very much a Londoner although she also has strong ties with Wales and adores Italy. She graduated in fine art before coming to Italy in the late eighties to continue her art studies. She eventually settled in Umbria where she has lived ever since, working as an English teacher while continuing to be a practicing artist exhibiting in and around Perugia, in Rome and in the U.S. She has worked as a translator and interpreter and has taught English at all levels, in a variety of contexts, collaborating with various companies and schools. She has been involved in the TLC's Beyond Language program (a course that applies NLP theory to teaching English as a foreign language) and other special courses on Public Speaking, Giving Talks and Presentations and Leadership.
In addition to a passion for the visual arts, literature and film, she also has a lively interest in oriental philosophy and practices Tai Ji. She enjoys conversation and through teaching has had the good luck to meet and talk to people from all over Italy.

Jon-Scot Burns

Jon-Scot was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. After graduating in Social Science, he worked for 12 years in retail management across a diverse range of roles. His experience in human resources management, sales reporting, business development and internal communications means he is well-placed to tailor his teaching to those who have a desire to work within the expanding field of international management.

He has an energetic teaching style that draws upon his experience of training hundreds of staff on an annual basis and his competancy across multiple operating systems allows Jon-Scot to maximise the potential that technology can play in enhancing the student's learning experience. TEFL qualified, Jon-Scot taught English as second language in Edinburgh before moving to Todi.

Passionate about other cultures, Jon-Scot has travelled widely in Europe and North America, coupled with his interest in history, international current affairs and especially UK and Italian politics.

Bob Holt

Bob worked for ten years in the printing industry before becoming Global Director of Creative Services of Saatchi and Saatchi Advertising.  He has produced and directed short films and developed innovations in music production. He also ran the Incorporated Society of British Advertiser’s courses on Advertising Production for Brand Managers and developed public speaking courses for international  marketing executives.

He has had numerous articles published and has featured in the book, The Strategic Control of Marketing Finance.

His personal interests include amateur dramatics, music and sport.

Aude Carmichael

An experienced teacher of English Language and Literature, English as a Second Language, and French, Aude is a Canadian who lived and worked in southern Africa for many years before choosing to make Italy, and specifically Umbria, her new home.

In Africa (Swaziland), where Aude taught mostly English Language and Literature in an international secondary school, she encountered many students for whom English was a second or third language, and her interest in teaching ESL grew from that. She subsequently obtained a TEFL/TEYL qualification and taught several private students (adults, children and teenagers) on a one-to-one basis before coming to Italy in August 2009. She enjoys working with people of all ages. She loves languages but particularly cherishes English for its many linguistic idiosyncrasies and richly-nuanced vocabulary.

Aude's personal interests include reading, listening to music (from classical to alternative rock), walking, watching football, and doing various hand-crafts (sewing, knitting & crocheting). She loves animals and hopes to acquire an Italian cat.

Brian & Grace Clinch:

We are Bryan and Grace Clinch and both of us are experienced teachers of English and Italian for foreigners. Having taught for a long time in Sardinia we now  live in a beautiful ‘Baita’ overlooking Lake Trasimeno, from where we collaborate with the TLC  organizing  ‘Homestay English Courses’ and Summer Campus for teenagers. Our free time is filled with literature, art, history, theatre, woodturning and two ageing dogs.

Sheila Santolamazza

After a 10-year career with multinationals in Venezuela, the United States and the UK, I decided to transfer to Italy in 2002 in order to fully comprehend what is known around the world as 'Made in Italy'. Since then, I’ve immersed myself in a series of professional experiences in the educational, culinary and tourism sectors, and have created My World Services with the goal of facilitating communication and development of businesses in these fields.  On the education front, I teach Business English as well as Information Technology to professionals wishing to improve their skills in preparation for today's hi-tech, global workforce.  The end result is the knowledge transfer of a myriad of skills learned in each country and varying industries, ranging from analytical to linguistic, from gourmet to hospitality.