Language programmes should work. When they don’t, there’s always a reason.
If you run an ESOL provider, a refugee education organisation or a mission-driven EdTech platform and your programme isn’t doing what it should, my job is to find the reason and help you put it right. The work falls into the three areas below, though most jobs end up drawing on more than one.
Programme Review and Diagnosis
For organisations that know something isn’t working but can’t quite put their finger on what.
An underperforming programme rarely fails for one tidy reason. Usually several things are tangled together: the curriculum, the teaching, learner needs going unmet, outcomes that nobody’s measuring in a way that means anything. Working out which of those are in play, and what order to tackle them in, is where any real improvement starts.
A programme review typically involves:
- Structured conversations with programme leads, teachers, and where possible, learners
- Review of existing curriculum materials, lesson plans, and any available outcomes data
- Observation of delivery where practical
- Analysis of the gap between what the programme is designed to do and what it is actually doing
What you get: A clear, plain-spoken written report that names what isn’t working, why, and what to do about it, in priority order. It’s written to be acted on, not filed away.
Curriculum and Programme Design
For organisations building a new language programme or rebuilding one that isn’t fit for purpose.
Good curriculum design starts with the learner: who they are, what they need the language for, what’s getting in their way, and what success would actually look like for them. From there you work backwards to a programme that’s properly sequenced, has a clear purpose, and can realistically be taught by the people who’ll be teaching it.
Curriculum Design typically involves:
- Learning needs analysis: understanding your learners in depth before a word of the programme is designed
- Programme architecture: sequencing, progression and the design of each strand
- Curriculum and materials: building the content teachers and learners will actually use
- Implementation planning: making sure the design survives contact with the classroom
What you get: A complete, ready-to-run curriculum and programme framework, built around your particular learners, your context and the resources you actually have.
Teacher Development and Capacity Building
For organisations whose teaching is uneven, or whose teachers need real development rather than another training day.
Even a well-designed programme underperforms if the people teaching it don’t have the skills, the confidence or the backing to do it well. And development isn’t the same as training. Training hands people information; development changes how they teach. That difference matters most in the places you’d expect: with volunteer or non-specialist tutors, and with staff who’ve had little real professional development before.
Teacher Development typically involves:
- Diagnostic assessment of current teaching practice across your team
- Design of a structured development programme tailored to your teachers’ specific needs
- Mentoring frameworks, observation protocols, and feedback systems
- Facilitated professional development sessions
- Capacity building toward independent, sustainable practice, so your reliance on outside help falls away over time
What you get: A teaching team that delivers more consistently, keeps getting better on its own, and can hold its quality without you having to call someone in.
How Engagements Work
Every engagement begins with a discovery conversation.
Before I propose anything, I want to understand your situation properly. That’s a straightforward conversation, usually thirty to forty-five minutes, about what you’re working on, what you’ve already tried, and what you’re hoping to achieve. No charge, and no obligation on either side.
If it looks like I can help, I’ll put together a proposal: the scope, the timeline, the deliverables and the fee. Fees are per project, not per hour, so you know exactly what you’re committing to before you commit to anything.
I work remotely, with organisations in the UK, Canada and beyond. When being there in person would earn its keep, for observation visits, workshops or stakeholder meetings, I can travel across Canada or to the UK.
I take on only a few clients at a time. That’s deliberate: it means the organisations I work with get my full attention instead of a sliver of it.
Not Sure Which Service Fits?
That’s completely normal. Most organisations come to me with a general sense that something isn’t right, not a precise diagnosis of what they need. Working that out is exactly what the discovery conversation is for.