“You may be surprised that there are approximately 2 billion learners of English across the globe and about 80% of them resort to self-study methods. This is where I saw our opportunity.” To offer an alternative to the classroom for those who want it while also offering free and affordable access to quality English language training to all students across the globe and always with expert teachers at the heart of the learning experience. “Today and every day, students in every country of the world study thousands of complete lessons with us on all devices.”

The Perfectly Spoken offer is designed to be as comprehensive as possible – they have been described as the Netflix of English language learning- which is not a bad comparison. As part of that offer, while most students are happy to learn and improve their general English, many need to respond to the growing need to improve their English in their professional life to study abroad or migrate to English-speaking countries. For this, students need to demonstrate proficiency in English in tests such as IELTS – over 3 million students took this globally recognized test of English proficiency last year. Perfectly Spoken provides proprietary courses to help students prepare for these exams. “Our students’ advantage is that all courses are accessible as part of our subscription model, so the fact that students don’t have to buy premium courses independently, underscores our message of affordability.”

“I think our uniqueness goes beyond the specialist courses we design and create inhouse. We are also proud of the licensing agreement that we have with global news agency, Reuters. This helps us create a truly unique learning experience ideal for learners of Business English and for students preparing for official exams,” explains David.

Perfectly Spoken offers a free plan to learn English firstly, to drive sign-ups, and encourage conversion to one of their two subscription plans. However, with all the free learning content already available on the market, they knew their free offer had to be exceptional, and it is. The second reason was their genuine desire to help all students around the world improve their English. This goes to the soul of Perfectly Spoken. “In today’s global economy English is increasingly a key criterion in determining employability and any difference we can make-and we do-must be positive,” explains David. “We know from experience that simply being able to understand basic instructions in English can be the difference of a job offer or not. That’s how transformative it can be.”

Perfectly Spoken gets numerous requests from NGOs to collaborate; in one particular instance, they were approached by an organization seeking to help a highly educated young refugee from Iraq who had been granted asylum in the UK; he had previously been pursuing a career in medicine but now was also responsible for three siblings and his recently widowed mother. Agencies in the UK were supporting him in his quest to gain admission to a UK university. “What we were able to do was to accelerate the progress of a highly talented and committed individual to guarantee a successful outcome,” shares the steadfast leader.

In the near future, Perfectly Spoken customers will enjoy continued access to their ongoing program of creating and releasing new specialist courses and additional learning practice activities each month, the release of an enhanced learning experience for all as they implement improvements to the user interface and are looking forward to offering students the ability to create and follow their personalized learning plans which will further support their goal of creating autonomous learners. “In the longer term we have ambitious plans to introduce a range of AI based services, (from voice recognition to writing correction) which will further complement but never supplant the work of our teachers. We are also exploring exciting opportunities to work with partners to create a range of accredited online examinations for students and innovative teacher training courses,” elucidates David.