John Langridge was educated at Marlborough College, Durham University, and the London School of Economics. He worked in Human Resources from 1986 until 2002, when he became an English teacher, having gained a CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults) at International House in London. He went on to teach English at two universities in France and three schools in the UK. Students from more than 70 countries attended his classes.

Much of his time was spent preparing his students for the Cambridge exams which are now B1 Preliminary and B2 First, (formerly PET and FCE). Unable to find texts which contained most of the vocabulary on a particular topic, he wrote his own material so they could revise the target language they had learnt in previous weeks and months. He used what he had written in his classes, for dictations, vocabulary exercises, and pronunciation practice; a sequence of activities that greatly improved their English. 150 of the texts, on a wide range of topics, and 2,250 clues, are now available as exercises in his book, ‘All About Us!’.