About us
Our story
Welcome to Abridge Academy – a teaching company for teachers, by teachers!
Founded in 2018 by Katie, a qualified school teacher in the UK, Abridge Academy is passionate about education. After successfully running in-person teach abroad programs in Asia, we moved online in 2020, with our teaching resources, accredited TEFL courses and tutoring program.
However, we struggled to find high quality, interactive and fun teaching resources for our tutors, and identified a real need for professional curricula for independent teachers and small businesses – and so we launched our own.
Abridge Academy, your one-stop shop for outstanding online classes.
Who we are
Katie is a qualified teacher from the UK, with a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) from the University of Cambridge and UK Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). She has taught students aged 3-18 in classrooms across the UK and China, as well as teaching online since 2013. She also has two years experience working as the Education Director for an online ESL start-up, responsible for tutoring training and curriculum development.
Katie is passionate about empowering independent teachers like you to achieve their goals, and loves connecting with teachers worldwide. Feel free to drop us a message any time, and thank you for being an Abridge Academy teacher!
Our awards
With support from the Southampton Social Impact lab, Enterprise Nation, the Amazon Small Business Accelerator and University of Cambridge’s Downing Enterprise, Abridge Academy has been rapidly expanding over the past few years.
We are delighted to have won several prestigious industry awards, including top prizes from GoOverseas and GoAbroad.
Our curriculum
What one thing are kids looking for in class? Fun!
The Abridge Academy resources are highly interactive, with drag-and-drop activities, fun games and quizzes throughout. Your students will love learning English with Abridge Academy!
Impress your students with high-quality teaching materials created by professional teachers.
Unlike a traditional textbook, our resources are designed specifically for online teaching. They are packed full of interactive activities, and look beautiful too!
Our step-by-step core curriculum has been designed by qualified teachers with expertise in curriculum design. It guides your students from zero to fluent, with a logical progression designed to gradually introduce and reinforce key skills.
At the end of each unit, there is a unit review/ assessment lesson, which you can use to consolidate learning and demonstrate progress.
Looking to charge higher prices and offer more exciting lessons for your students? Our niche courses (included in your ultimate curriculum membership) focus on specific English skills or exciting “supercurricular” topics such as formal writing, STEM and news reading/ discussion classes.
Currently, these niche courses are aimed at intermediate to advanced learners, allowing them to develop their English skills while exploring their wider interests.
As real teachers ourselves, we know how busy your schedule can be. Our resources come totally ready-to-go, so you just need to open your computer and teach – goodbye stressful late night planning sessions!
That means more time for you to spend actually growing your business, or to enjoy quality time with family.
Language learning is a marathon, not a sprint, and requires steady, continual practice. Outside of class, students need to be practicing using the language!
We therefore include vocabulary flashcards, homework worksheets and (coming soon) lesson previews, which you can send to your students before or after class in order to further support their learning.
Abridge Academy’s curriculum resources work with any platform that allows screensharing – including Zoom, ClassIn, Koala, etc. We also have detailed guides available to members with advice on how to use our resources on these platforms.
Note however that if you wish for students to be able to directly interact with the slides (e.g. doing the drag-and-drop activities), you will need to check the functionality of your teaching platform. It must have the option for “remote control”, “two way interaction” or “co-browsing”. We would particularly recommend Zoom or Koala for these features.
If your teaching platform doesn’t allow for direct student interaction, it’s no problem – our slides can still be used with the built-in annotation tools, and teachers can move or click on items on the slides on the student’s behalf.
Please note that it is not possible to download the Abridge Academy slides to the re-upload into whiteboard-based teaching platforms. This is due to the interactivity of our slides, which is not compatible with PowerPoint or PDF formats.
Found an awesome lesson PPT on teachers pay teachers or a great textbook series on Amazon? Check the T&C’s – sadly most publishers and teachers do not allow their resources to be used for for-profit teaching.
Abridge Academy’s curriculum membership comes with an individual commercial licence as standard. There are no restrictions on how many classes/ students you teach, and you can also use our resources for teaching on marketplace platforms such as Outschool, italki or Preply.
The only restrictions are that you cannot distribute the resources (i.e. no reselling to other teachers or students) nor use the resources for pre-recorded video classes.
Abridge Academy’s curriculum membership is charged monthly via our simple automated subscription system. We even have a free-forever tier with a selection of lessons for you to try out with your students!
You can cancel, upgrade or downgrade your membership any time within the finances section of your dashboard. It’s very flexible, with no long term commitment required!
Please note that if you cancel your membership or your monthly subscription payment fails (e.g. due to your card expiring), you will automatically lose access to the resources at the end of that billing period. Please log into your account and update your payment details or re-subscribe to regain access.
The Abridge Academy curriculum is under continual development, with new lessons added every week!
Currently, we have over 100 lessons available in our core curriculum (phonics and step-by-step core course), focusing on beginners and pre-intermediate levels.
We also have over 50 further lessons available in our niche expansion courses, including our popular STEM courses and reading/ writing programs.
Our focus in early 2022 is to increase the number of A2 (pre-intermediate) lessons available, as well as launch more niche courses aimed at intermediate learners.
The Abridge Academy curriculum is aligned with the Common European Framework of Reference for languages (CEFR), a research-based and well supported framework for language learning. This reassures your students that the lessons are following an established and well-researched structure.
A rough guide to the CEFR levels is as follows:
- Level A1: elementary (VIPkid 1-3, PalFish 2-5)
- Level A2: pre-intermediate (VIPkid 4-6, PalFish 6-8)
- B1: lower intermediate (VIPkid 6-7, PalFish 8-9)
- B2: upper intermediate (VIPkid 7-8)
- C1: advanced
Our courses
Are you looking to teach English internationally or online? Our internationally accredited TEFL courses are the perfect qualifications to start your teaching career!
We offer a 120 hour course (meeting the industry standards) and the option to top this up to a 130 or 150 hour qualification by completing an assessed teaching practicum.
Our TEFL courses are accredited and moderated by OTTSA (the Online TESOL and TEFL Standards Authority), reassuring learners and employers of the quality and comprehensiveness of our training.
Upon successful course completion, TEFL learners receive an electronic certificate including verification codes for employers to check your training record.
As well as our accredited TEFL courses, we also offer a number of professional courses for more experienced teachers.
This includes our in-depth “Teaching the Chinese ESL market” course, ideal for online ESL teachers looking to expand their business in China. We also have a free “Teaching on Zoom” course to develop your online teaching skills.