A woman with long blonde hair wearing a black leather jacket sitting at a wooden table, looking at and smiling at a tablet device. A striped ceramic cup is on the table to her right. The background features a dark tiled wall.

Our Story

Chasing Time English is a New Zealand based company, founded by Scott Granville and Ben Woollen. 

We started this journey with a clear vision: to provide engaging live-action narrative series with teaching and learning resources for English language educators and students around the world.

Our team is a unique combination of English language educators, applied linguists and filmmaking professionals working and living across four continents. We believe this range of talent and diversity allows us to provide our customers with flexibility in delivery: a keystone of the modern education marketplace.

Central to the design of our materials is learner motivation. This objective is achieved through the design process, where prior to scripting, the production team consults with applied linguists and teaching professionals to identify appropriate learning content, and to ensure that the more difficult barriers to comprehension are mitigated.

  • A man with dark hair, wearing a black shirt, smiling at the camera against a gray background.

    Scott Granville

    Co-Founder | Managing Director

    A co-founder of Chasing Time English, Scott has worked in the education and media sectors for over 20 years with international experience in New Zealand, South Korea, Australia, Japan, China, the USA, and India. He leads the Chasing Time English team across the development, production and delivery of our narrative-driven education resources. Scott has extensive experience in international education, scriptwriting and project management, as well as in-depth knowledge of cross-industry collaboration processes.

  • A middle-aged man with blue eyes, wearing a black cap with a colorful logo and a denim jacket, standing in front of a pinkish background.

    Ben Woollen

    Co-Founder | Director

    A co-founder of Chasing Time English, Ben is an award-winning filmmaker currently based in Wellington, New Zealand. With more than twenty years of experience in the creative industry, and producing content for a wide range of international clientele across multiple sectors, Ben has amassed a strong portfolio of film and photographic work. He has worked on a number of major motion pictures throughout New Zealand, Australia and the USA.

  • A middle-aged man with light skin, light brown hair, and blue eyes, wearing a light blue plaid button-up shirt, posing against a light blue background.

    Jonathon Ryan

    Director of Education

    Jonathon (Jono) has over 20 years English teaching experience in New Zealand, Mexico and Ireland. He is particularly interested in L2 pragmatic competence and especially in applying insights from Conversation Analysis, and brings to his role many years of experience in designing and writing teaching materials. He holds a PhD and MA in applied linguistics, a postgraduate diploma in second language teaching and a bachelor degree in Film & Television Studies. His academic research has appeared in prestigious journals including Language Learning, Journal of Pragmatics, and ELT Journal.

  • A portrait of a woman with long brown hair, wearing a dark floral top, standing against a plain white background.

    Karen Kemsley

    Karen has lived, worked and travelled in nearly forty countries, including seven years in Africa and South America. Originally from London, she settled in NZ in 2001, working as an English language teacher and academic counsellor. Karen is passionate about communication and has a special interest in teaching listening and speaking skills. Prior to settling and focusing on language teaching, Karen applied her productive skills and resourceful nature to a career in the movie industry, working on productions such as The Last Samurai and Prince Caspian.

Our Teaching Philosophy

The pedagogical approach of Chasing Time English

English language education should excite. Content should grip the imagination and inspire learners to speak and to write. They should be eager to hear more. And the things students learn should be real and be crucial.

We believe video is the medium to achieve this. The drama and action of our short narrative videos make for compelling viewing, enlivened with intrigue, humour, surprise and tension. Our vision is for the video to stand on its own as entertainment: captivate learners, and the learning will follow.

We back this up with solid, cutting-edge pedagogy. Our international team of materials developers consists of PhD-qualified applied linguists and experienced industry professionals dedicated to designing teaching and learning resources based on contemporary, research-backed approaches.

Staying a step ahead, we draw on the fields of Conversation Analysis and Pragmatics to promote a broad base of communicative competence. We aim to shift the industry away from Listening Skills to broader Viewing Skills, a more authentic approach in which meaning is not merely detected through decoding sound – as if every conversation was by phone – but through language as it is enhanced through multi-modal resources including voice, facial expression, gesture, and a sense of space.

Chasing Time English promises pedagogical innovation, learner engagement, and quality assurance.

Contributors

  • Black and white portrait of a woman with a short, straight bob haircut and bangs, looking at the camera with a neutral expression.

    Maria Tarau

    Materials writer

  • A woman with shoulder-length hair smiling in front of a bookshelf filled with books.

    Yuko Nakahama

    Materials writer

  • A man smiling outdoors with trees and rocks in the background.

    Robert McLarty

    Materials writer

  • A woman with light-colored hair, smiling gently, resting her chin on her hand, sitting near a window with an outdoor view.

    Penny McLarty

    Materials writer

  • A grayscale portrait of a man with short hair, wearing a checkered shirt and a dark sweater, standing outdoors with blurred background lights.

    Craig Nicol

    Data analyst

  • Black and white portrait of a man with short, dark hair, wearing a collared shirt, looking directly at the camera.

    Michael Rabbidge

    Materials writer

  • Close-up of a smiling woman with curly hair and light skin, looking at the camera.

    Laura Haseley

    Materials writer

  • Black and white portrait of a man smiling in a suit and collared shirt.

    Marc Granville

    Partnership consultant