This paper contests the proposal that learner-centred education (LCE) may simply be a western construct, irrelevant to the current educational needs of developing countries, by arguing that its specific forms will be more effective when introduced through small-scale institutional relationships than through large-scale contracts with national governments. LCE initiatives are more likely to impact successfully if their professional language has been "culturally translated", a process which relates features of the surface level of an intervention to its underlying social relations of production as part of a dialogue which respects addressees not merely as listeners but also as active agents. (Contains 2 figures.)