// Your Instructor

Katlego Ayrton

Based in Pretoria, South Africa, with a university background in Governance, International Relations, World History, and a foundation in Law — an interdisciplinary formation that shapes everything about the way I teach. I hold a 120-hour TEFL certificate alongside a range of technical credentials in cybersecurity. This platform doesn't separate language from the systems that produce it. Every lesson on this platform is designed to help you see both.

Before building Decolonized Learning Lens, I spent over five years working as a remote ESL instructor, teaching thousands of international students across dozens of countries. That experience confirmed what I had long suspected: the best ESL platforms in the world still teach English as if the world began in London.

This platform is my answer to that. A South African-rooted, decolonised, critical-thinking-first approach to language education — one that puts the Global South at the centre of its curriculum rather than its footnotes.

12,168
Lessons delivered
5,869
Students taught
309,811
Minutes taught
12+
Private students
Lesson Rates
15 min
$8
30 min
$10
45 min
$12
60 min
$16

Book 6 or more lessons and receive $1 off each session. Payment via PayPal or SWIFT bank transfer.

Katlego Ayrton
ESL Instructor · Pretoria, South Africa
Governance, International Relations & World History ESL Instructor Critical Thinking Pedagogy Cultural Awareness Mentoring Geopolitics
  • 120-hour TEFL Certificate
  • 5+ years international ESL instruction, remote and in-person
  • Curriculum developed for CEFR A1 through C2
  • Platform content grounded in academic linguistic sources
  • Lessons available in English — all levels welcome
Get in touch
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Microsoft Teams: katlegoayrton@gmail.com
Most lessons are conducted via Teams — search by email to connect
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Sessions online — students worldwide
// The philosophy

Why this platform exists

We live in an era of extraordinary linguistic contradiction. Artificial intelligence can produce grammatically flawless English in seconds. Translation tools have become almost instantaneous. Grammar-checking software has eliminated most of the technical errors that used to require years of study.

"If a machine can produce perfect grammar, the question is no longer whether you can speak correctly. The question is whether you have something worth saying — and whether you have the critical tools to say it with conviction."

The dominant model of ESL education was designed for a different era — an era when the goal was to produce functionally adequate speakers who could navigate Western commercial environments. It was never designed to produce thinkers.

Decolonized Learning Lens was built on the South African tradition that education is a tool for liberation, not compliance. It centres critical thinking — the ability to question sources, examine assumptions, and form independent judgement — as the primary goal, with English as the vehicle.

PRINCIPLE 01

Deconstruct the system, not just the sentence

Every map, grammar rule, news headline and cultural assumption has a history and an agenda. Students learn to read language as a system of power, not just a collection of words.

PRINCIPLE 02

The Global South is the centre, not the supplement

Rwanda, Bolivia, Nollywood, Ubuntu philosophy, the spice trade, seed sovereignty — these are not "multicultural add-ons." They are the foundation on which the curriculum is built.

PRINCIPLE 03

Practical intelligence over rote memorisation

Students practice language through real scenarios — negotiating at markets, setting boundaries in workplaces, advocating in medical settings, questioning media in real time. No crammed word lists, no pass-and-forget exams.

PRINCIPLE 04

Critical thinking is a skill that is disappearing

In an age of algorithmic content, AI-generated text, and infinite scroll, the ability to stop, question, and think independently is becoming rare. This platform treats that skill as urgent — not optional.

On artificial intelligence and the future of language learning

AI has not made English education irrelevant. It has made the wrong kind of English education irrelevant.

If your goal was always to produce grammatically correct sentences without thinking about them, a language model does that faster and better than any human instructor. But if your goal is to use language as a tool for critical thought, cultural navigation, personal advocacy, and genuine human connection — that is not something any algorithm can teach you.

Decolonized Learning Lens exists precisely because of AI — not in spite of it. Every lesson here is designed around the things that remain irreducibly human: the capacity to question, to be curious, to disagree, to empathise, and to communicate across genuine difference.

// Book a lesson

Ready to start?

Send a message using the form or reach out directly. Sessions are available online for students at all levels — from complete beginners to C2 Advanced. Junior Explorers (ages 6–11) are also welcome.

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WhatsApp
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Microsoft Teams
katlegoayrton@gmail.com
Primary platform for live lessons
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Payment
PayPal · SWIFT bank transfer
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Location
Pretoria, South Africa · Sessions online worldwide

Send a message

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