The iPass Team - Jenny Bedwell & Nigel Haines
About Jenny
Hi, I’m Jenny and together with Nigel we have created and developed iPass, an online learning centre for students of English. I’ve been teaching English as a foreign language for 15 years, in various countries including Greece, Japan, Poland, Hungary, Portugal, the UK and now in Spain. Teaching methods have changed a lot over the years, becoming a lot more technology-focused than when I started in 1996. Back then I didn’t even have an email address!! With the huge explosion of internet access in the past few years, things have really opened up and teaching and learning opportunities are now more exciting than ever.
I met Nigel in 2003 when we were both working as teachers at the British Council in Lisbon. IELTS test preparation, along with other Cambridge exams, was an important part of our work, but we wanted to offer our teaching skills and expertise to students outside of Portugal, who perhaps were not easily able to attend a traditional language school. So we decided to create iPass - a web-based educational community which offers online English courses for beginners to advanced students in General English and English for Specific Purposes.
The General English courses are really useful in helping learners get to the right level to take IELTS and the English for Health and English for Nursing courses have been especially popular with health workers worldwide who are seeking employment in an English-speaking country. Many of them are now working as doctors and nurses in the UK and Australia.
You can read some of their comments about iPass on our testimonials page.
However, our special area of expertise remains in Academic IELTS exam preparation - our 4-week course is a blended learning programme, combining independent study via a series of self-access lessons, with one-to-one tuition offering personal feedback on speaking and writing exam practice tasks.
For the majority of our students, getting the right band score in IELTS is the absolute key in opening the door to a new world of exciting job opportunities abroad. The reason I first started a career in EFL was to interact with English students from all over the world and help them to achieve their professional goals. Although I am based in Spain, the beauty of the internet enables me to continue to do that through iPass.
iPass has been up and running for over 4 years now but our passion for the project means we are continually working to develop our courses and the overall service we offer. If you have any comments about our website or suggestions for improvement, we’d love to hear from you. Please contact us at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
About Nigel
Hi, I’m Nigel, Jenny’s partner in iPass and like Jenny I’ve taught in various countries – the UK, Portugal, Hong Kong and Dubai – but for a little longer: nearly 20 years.
Jenny’s told you our story, and I’d only like to add that we both really believe that iPass can make a difference to anybody learning or studying English.
We’ve heard so many positive stories from our students about learning English using our courses, but we’re especially proud of our IELTS preparation course.
Our online Academic IELTS course uniquely offers students taking IELTS a tutored writing and speaking element so that we can give students one-to-one professional advice and support.
We feel this is very important for our students and through it we build a relationship that can work on a personal and practical level. This we have found can really help and improve a student’s chances when retaking IELTS.
In fact we feel so confident about our iPass course we’ve decided to give our students a money-back guarantee!
Other iPass Contributors
Mark Harrison
Mark Harrison is a freelance author, materials writer and consultant, specialising in tests and grammar. He has written numerous practice test and skills books for the FCE, CAE, CPE, IELTS, BEC and BULATS exams, mainly for Oxford University Press and Macmillan/Heinemann, and also for Thomson/Cengage and Marshall Cavendish. He has many years of experience as a writer, Chair and consultant for Cambridge ESOL, working on FCE, CAE, CPE, IELTS, BEC and BULATS. His grammar books include Grammar Spectrum and Oxford Practice Grammar Basic, both for OUP. He has also written extensively for CD-ROMs and online resources, including test materials for FCE, CAE, CPE, BEC and IELTS. He lives in London.
Russell Whitehead
Russell Whitehead is a freelance author, based in Cambridge UK. He has written or co-written ten books, including a teacher’s book and test books for all levels of BEC (OUP, Summertown/Economic Science Press), BULATS (Marshall Cavendish) and IELTS (Thomson/Cengage). He also writes material for CD-ROMs and EFL websites. He has done consultancy work for UK universities, British Council and Cambridge ESOL. He is closely involved in test production for Cambridge ESOL and writes a regular column in the IATEFL Newsletter ‘Independence’.
Phil Wade
Phil has over 12 years of English teaching experience throughout Europe and Asia. He has designed, managed and taught courses in schools, language schools, universities and at corporate level. His main interests are designing materials, teaching exam classes, Business English and Blended Learning. Phil is a regular contributor to several international journals including BESIG, ETp, ELTAF and TESOL and additionally teaches online and is a Cambridge examiner. His qualifications include a degree in Business, the CELTA, DELTA module 3, a PGCE with English specialism and the MA TESOL.
