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This page is for overseas students, host families and English language teachers in the Aberdeenshire Interested in becoming a host family or EFL teacher?
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LTT organises English language programmes and cultural stays for overseas students and school groups visiting Aberdeenshire, Scotland. School groups stay with host families in and around Stonehaven and tour the local area whereas individual students who come for English language learning stay with EFL teachers based throughout Aberdeenshire. Please contact Clare on: [email protected]

14/10/2026

Something made me smile recently, and I wanted to share it.

Valerie's group spent a morning in the city centre with Jacqueline from Grampian Escapes and Tours, and one of their stops was Marischal College.

Many of you probably pass it without a second glance. I certainly do. It's where you sort out your parking permit.

One of the pupils, Louis, had been to El Escorial in Spain, which is the largest granite building in the world. So Jacqueline asked him which he preferred. He didn't hesitate. "I went to El Escorial. It's the biggest granite building in the world, but I prefer this one. It has more interesting shapes, and all the spires. El Escorial is just big."

Our council headquarters, the second-largest granite building on the planet, beating Spain on style. I felt oddly proud.

Jacqueline gave the pupils the stories that most of us who live here have never heard. The founder, the Earl Marischal, was criticised for opening a second university barely a mile from King's College, so he carved his answer inside the entrance: "They have said. What say they?

Let them say." James Clerk Maxwell, one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, taught there and then lost his job when the two colleges merged in 1860.

And in 1784, on that very ground, the first bishop of the American Episcopal Church was consecrated in a house on Broad Street that has long since gone.

I stood there feeling a little bit sheepish. It took a teenager from France to show me my own city.

Thank you to Jacqueline, who makes stone come alive, to Valerie for bringing her group back to us, and to every host family who sent these young people out that morning well fed and on time. You make these moments possible.

Now I'd love your view. El Escorial or Marischal? And which building in the North East do you think visitors should never miss?

Best wishes from Clare and the LTT team.

12/10/2026

Hello everyone, I hope autumn is arriving gently wherever you are in the North East.

I want to tell you about Deenaree and her family in Brechin, who became LTT hosts for the first time this year.

They welcomed two French girls into their home, and in a sense it was a first for everybody.

The family had never hosted. The girls had never stayed in a Scottish home. First time on both sides of the door.

To be honest with you, placing students with a brand new host family still gives me a small knot in my stomach, however carefully we've prepared. You can match a family well on paper and still wonder how that first evening at the table might go.

Here is what Deenaree did. She got the board games out and sat her own children and the two girls down together. I love this, because a board game gives everybody the same rules before they share the same language.

Whose turn it is, how far to move, who is winning. You can laugh at someone's terrible roll in any language at all.

Then it was Lisa's birthday. A birthday far from home is often the day homesickness lands hardest, when you're picturing your own family's kitchen. Instead, a family in Brechin she had only recently met brought out a cake, lit the candles and sang to her.

I suspect that moment may stay with Lisa longer than any excursion we organised.

Afterwards Deenaree sent us a message: "Thank you so much for organising everything re. hosting. We've really enjoyed our experience."

That loosened the knot completely. I know many of you have thought about hosting and held back because you worried you'd get it wrong, or that it might all be too much to manage.

Deenaree's first year suggests otherwise. We look after the arrangements. You bring the table.

A huge thank you to Deenaree and family for your warmth, your board games and your birthday candles.

Best wishes from Clare and the LTT team.

P.S. If you have a spare room in the North East or Angus and would like to hear what hosting in 2027 could look like, reply to this post or send me a message, and we can arrange a friendly chat.

08/10/2026

Morning everyone,
I've been saving this photograph since June, because it deserves the full story.

This is Lisa and her friends from Saint-Avertin in France, at Aberdeen Grammar, being shown how to build tartan out of coloured thread by local pupils at Aberdeen Grammar School. Irn-Bru on every table, naturally.

Saint-Avertin is a small town just outside Tours, and it has a secret that most people in Aberdeen have never heard. According to local tradition, it's named after a monk called Aberdeen. He travelled to France with Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1163.

When Becket was murdered in his own cathedral in 1170, this monk went back to the Loire and never came home. He lived as a hermit in the woods, and spent his last years looking after the poor and anyone passing through who needed help. The villagers loved him so much they made him their priest, and in 1371 they renamed the whole village after him.

I find that quietly moving. A man who'd lost his friend in the most brutal way possible, choosing to stay among strangers and care for them.

More than 850 years on, children from his town come to Aberdeen every two years to stay with families here. The caring now runs both ways.

When I first saw this photo, I must admit my heart sank a little. Lisa looks as though she's been set an exam in the wrong language.

Then Valerie, their teacher, told me what was really happening. It was a collaborative task, and that table never went quiet. English and French, crossing back and forth all afternoon. Nobody translating for anybody. They just worked it out together, one stripe at a time.

Thank you to Valerie for bringing the group, to the pupils of Aberdeen Grammar for being such patient teachers, and to the families who opened their homes. Our friend the monk would approve.

Now over to you. Tag the person you were paired with on your school exchange and tell us the first word they taught you. We'd love to read them.

Best wishes from Clare and the LTT team.

07/10/2026

Bonjour from Aberdeen, and I hope your week has started gently.

Few days ago, twenty u3a members from all over Scotland, from Oban right across to Aberdeen, arrived in Rouen. At half past eight of the morning, they sat down for their first French lesson at French in Normandy, an International House accredited school.

Corinne, our partner at the agency in France, and I have been planning this classic French language programme for months, so today feels rather special.

Before they left, several members admitted they were nervous about speaking. Their grammar is excellent, because that's how most of us were taught French at school. But knowing the rules and saying a sentence out loud to a real person are two very different things.

I know that feeling well. When I lived in France, I tried to explain a leaking pipe to my landlord.

Those of you who know your French slang can probably guess what happened. The word I chose was not the plumbing one. He laughed until he had to hold onto the doorframe, and I turned the colour of a Normandy apple. I haven't mixed those two words up since, and I still smile about it now.

The week ahead is a fab one. Monet's cathedral and tea at Dame Cakes today. Calvados at Château du Breuil tomorrow. A Rouen Gourmande food tour, Monet's garden at Giverny, the ruins of Jumièges Abbey and an evening in Honfleur.

Saturday is the Caen Memorial and the D-Day beaches. For some of the group that day is deeply personal. Marion's family has its own connection to Normandy in 1944, and I'm thinking of her especially.

A huge thank you to Agnes, our online French teacher, who has worked with many of them for months. She tells me they've all made great progress, with a real willingness to move out of their comfort zone and learn. And thank you to Corinne for the months of careful planning.

Now I'd love your help. Leave a "bon courage", a word of encouragement or your favourite

French phrase in the comments, and we're sharing them with the group in Rouen this week.

Best wishes from Clare and the LTT team.

01/10/2026

Something fun happened last week.

We spend a good part of our year scouting local venues our students might enjoy, and last week that habit led us somewhere we did not expect. Bervie Brow Bunker, a Cold War station tucked into the coastline of the Coastal Mearns.

Its history is remarkable. It was built for RAF Fighter Command to detect Soviet bombers. It was later used by the US Navy for signals intelligence. Eventually it became the hidden post-strike Headquarters for British Armed Forces in Scotland. Three chapters of Cold War history, sitting quietly on a headland most of us have driven past without a second thought.

Harry showed us round and told us about his restoration of the bunker. It is clear how many years he has given to this, and how much it means to him personally. Standing inside a building like that, hearing someone talk about the work they have put into saving it, changes how you see the coast we work on every single day.

We were there thanks to Visit Aberdeenshire, who gave us the opportunity to network and catch up with other local tourism businesses. It is worth saying that finds like this rarely happen on their own. They happen because people in this industry look out for each other and share what they know.

We loved every minute of it.

Now we are wondering whether it might be the venue for our pre Christmas gettogether. A tour of the bunker with Harry, followed by time to catch up properly with our hosts and local partners.

So, hosts and local partners, fancy joining us for a tour of the bunker this Christmas? Let us know in the comments below; we would love to show you round.

Thank you to Harry for his time and his story, and to Visit Aberdeenshire for making the connection possible.

Best wishes from Clare and the LTT team.

30/09/2026

Morning everyone, I hope the week is treating you gently so far.

I want to share something Rod sent us this week, after finishing his online French lessons with Agnès ahead of our u3a trip to Rouen in October.

Agnès has been working with our students for a few months now, online, one to one. For those staying with host families or in hotels, she's focused the lessons on practical conversation: the phrases people actually reach for in the first few minutes anywhere new, greeting hosts, ordering in a café, asking for help if something goes sideways.

For our more advanced learners, including a few of you who taught French yourselves once, she's moved into special interest topics and up-levelling vocabulary rather than going back to basics.

Here's what Rod told us in his own words.

"Just a wee note to say how much I enjoyed my online sessions with Agnès in preparation for the language school in October. She gave me some useful phrases to use in different locations and good advice on how to observe French customs and manners.

I'm currently trying to memorise them all since they should come in handy in Rouen. Agnès herself is lovely and a good tutor. Following her conversation in French was a bit challenging at times, but I could follow most of it, and that gave me confidence."

That last sentence is the one I keep coming back to. He didn't say it was easy. He didn't say he understood every word. He said he followed most of it, and that alone changed how he feels about stepping off the train in Rouen.

That's what preparation is actually for. Not perfection. Just enough ground under your feet to know you'll manage.

Thank you, Agnès, for the hours of quiet work that got Rod, and the rest of our group, to this point.

If you're travelling with us and haven't booked your lessons yet, or you'd simply like to prepare before a trip of your own, send us a DM or let us know in the comments below. There's still time before October.

Best wishes from Clare and the LTT team.

28/09/2026

Morning everyone, I hope the week is treating you gently so far.

A woman emailed me a few weeks back, and she opened with a kind of apology. She was retired, lived alone, and it had been well over a decade since she had a teenager under her roof. She used the phrase "we are not a traditional family," as though that ruled her out before we had even spoken.

She now has a French sixteen year old arriving in October, and I could not be more pleased for her.

That question comes up more than any other one I get. Some version of "will we qualify," usually from someone who has already decided the answer is no. So let me say it plainly here. Young families, retired couples, empty nesters, single women, all of them are hosting well with us right now. What matters most is a warm and welcoming approach, not a particular shape of household or a spare room that looks a certain way.

What a student actually needs is smaller than people tend to picture. A clean, safe bed of their own, though students can share a room. Access to a shower every day. A continental breakfast, a packed lunch, and a proper two course meal in the evening. Explain your house rules the way you would to a visiting relative, how the shower works, where the coats go, no phones at dinner, and you are most of the way there already.

Nobody does this alone. A local rep is available around the clock and meets the group at the pickup point morning and evening, so you always have someone to speak to. A WhatsApp group is set up the day students arrive, so hosts can ask each other something small at nine in the evening without a second thought. We also run events through the year, cream teas, a visit to the Gordon Highlanders Museum, so our host network genuinely knows each other.

Payment covers transport, food and bills, often with a little left over, and you can host up to four students in one stay if that fits your household. Some of our hosts have been invited to visit their student's home country afterwards. That is not the pitch. That is simply what tends to happen when you let someone in properly for a fortnight.

Thank you to every host who has ever messaged me convinced they would not qualify, and then went on to prove themselves entirely wrong.

If a spare room and a warm welcome sound like something you could offer this year, get in touch. I would rather answer your questions than have you talk yourself out of it.

Best wishes from Clare and the LTT team.

25/09/2026

Hosting can make familiar places feel new again.

Paula loved seeing how excited her girls were about simple dog walks and exploring the local area.

And their evening meals led to some great chats too. 💚

That’s the beauty of an LTT homestay: students discover NE Scotland, while hosts get to see it through fresh eyes.

Has a visitor ever made you appreciate your own local area differently?

24/09/2026

Gabi came to Scotland and discovered a band she'll never forget.

During her LTT one-to-one homestay, Gabi from Germany visited the Summer’s End Festival in Brechin with her host and discovered Skerryvore.

She loved the energy, melody, and mix of instruments, especially as a flute player herself!

Now Skerryvore will always remind her of her amazing time in NE Scotland. 💚

Have you ever connected a song or band with a holiday abroad?
Tell us below!

21/09/2026

Sometimes, the little things make a homestay special. 💚

Anne and Gordon cared for their girls, explored Ellon with them, and enjoyed evenings playing card games like 21s.

It was simple, thoughtful hosting at its best.

What would you do to help a new student feel at home?

Address

Queen Elizabeth Park
Stonehaven
AB392RD

Telephone

+441561378218

Website

http://www.languagetraveltours.com/

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