ABEL Consultants was founded by Ian Daniels and Scott Donald when they decided to take their friendship to the next level and become business partners. Having both spent over a decade teaching in various contexts, they were able to see what was working for learners, teachers, and businesses, and more importantly — what wasn’t.

There was a lot of overlap in their philosophies and motivations, as well as a respect for developments in education, especially regarding the increasing popularity of online learning. It was evident to them that the language-learning landscape was clearly changing. 

From their combined teaching experience, Ian and Scott had a clear insight into how learners' needs were being met, and they agreed that something was missing. They knew expert educators whose talents were not being properly appreciated, and they had met countless language learners following generic, superficial syllabuses which did little to address their actual needs.

ABEL was therefore formed to address learners’ specific needs by matching them to an educator with the relevant expertise. That’s why our expert educators are known as “consultants”. They are not standing in front of a large class delivering a prescribed syllabus, they are your consultant — helping you with your needs and ensuring your best qualities aren’t being lost in communication.

Often, I find myself saying to students and teachers,

“This is great, but how could we make it better?”

In many ways, this is how I feel about the language teaching industry in general. I’ve had amazing experiences in places I’ve taught, trained or managed, but I’d sometimes see areas that I knew could be improved: people obsessed with exams, unscientific teaching ideas, or generic syllabuses which didn’t actually address students’ needs. I felt confident that I knew people who could do a better job. 

I started cooking up some ideas, not realising that Ian was too. When we started speaking about them, it became clear that our ideas would work well together, and that Ian and I would too. So instead of just messaging each other obscure memes and Youtube videos, we began working on our project.

Teachers are sometimes unable to provide sufficient support to all learners due to time constraints, and it may not be in the best interests of a business to say to their paying customers that they no longer need the support of their online services. I believe that everyone should be able to access individualised support for their language and communication needs, and when experts use scaffolding strategies adeptly, language users should be able to move past the particular issues they initially sought help for — no longer needing support in that area.

The aim of helping people from all walks of life to become independent communicators online and in person is a huge task. However, I believe that by creating ABEL, Scott and I are producing a space where users of English know we have their best interests at heart. Moreover, clients are confident to return to us at any point when they encounter a new language issue to conquer.

We understand that there is a lot of cynicism surrounding the idea of companies taking advantage of political causes to promote their products and services. We accept that maybe some people don’t care what their mobile phone provider’s views on racism are, or how their favourite chocolate bar feels about gender discrimination; however, we feel that organisations have a responsibility to behave ethically and to be transparent about their policies — because for many years, many companies have not been transparent. 

When forming ABEL Consultants, Ian and Scott agreed that certain things had to be done right for the sake of our clients, our consultants, and anything else our company might have an impact on. For this reason, we shaped our ethos around five core principles. 

ABEL's 5 Core Principles:

1. We ensure our clients receive high-quality service. 

2. We run the company ethically and contribute towards worthy causes.

3. We prevent discrimination and promote equal opportunities — something which has historically been lacking in the language learning industry.

4. We provide fair and safe working conditions for our consultants. 

5. We provide data-secure services in an accessible, safe, and inclusive environment. 

Why we are different

There are many organisations and academies offering a wide range of services, including exam English, business English, general English, and English for young learners. One issue is that, despite this significant range, the services provided can be quite generic, built around a prescribed syllabus that does little to cater to an individual student's needs. Conventional wisdom might suggest that becoming more specialised and offering a narrower range of services would be a solution, but we feel that this ignores the fact that a lot of great educators genuinely do have such a wide range of expertise. 

However, these expert educators are:

• Often forced to teach group classes where students have different goals and motivations: exam students mixed with general English students; employees of a marketing department with workers from the quality control department; young children who speak very little English with older, more advanced teenagers. 

• Not able to teach the classes they really excel at, or that they have a particular expertise in, because they have to deliver specific content. They may also have to take on more responsibilities due to absent colleagues or understaffing. 

• Sometimes unavailable. These experienced and enthusiastic teachers may require higher pay, demand higher standards from management, or end up in management positions themselves. So when there is a demand from clients, many organisations hire less experienced or less qualified teachers and assign them classes for which they are not yet prepared. 

For these reasons, at ABEL we only hire well-qualified, experienced educators to be our consultants. We then match their expertise to our clients’ specific goals. In this way, we cater to our clients’ needs, instead of placing them in a random class with people who have very different motivations.

We also know that there is a growing interest in websites where you can find teachers online, but many of these platforms don’t solve the problem of generic teaching, especially if they feature less qualified or experienced teachers. 

Ian and Scott, as well as many of their colleagues, are also concerned about this kind of, shall we say, “Tinderisation” of teaching. Because many of these sites are simply a searchable database, there is no guidance from the site, and teachers are being chosen for the wrong reasons. That’s why ABEL highlights our consultants' qualifications and experience rather than their face or country of birth: because once we’ve found the ABEL Consultants that are right for you, we want you to make your choice based on the right reasons. 

Finally, some of these websites also use rating systems to determine how good a teacher is, based on the reviews of clients. While this can be a good idea in theory, in practice, we know that it can lead to some quite bizarre behaviour as clients or teachers attempt to game their ratings. We avoid this Black Mirror-esque dystopia by carefully collecting reviews privately, and publishing only those with client–consultant consent.

Simply put: We don’t believe in de-ranking or low scores. We will take any complaints seriously and take any action needed to ensure our standards are maintained. 

ABEL has selected only the best to be our consultants.