I met Rodrigo at an earlier Speak Exchange event. Rodrigo Colares is a scientist from Brasil. Juliana Serra is a local education student. They are all volunteers teaching for the SPEAK. I beliebe we are their first batch of students.

Rodrigo speaks Brazilian Portugues which I have been familiar by using Duolinguo. Juliana speaks local Portugues. Her pronounciation sounds very strange to me at the beginning. I read a study a few years ago, I beliebe by an Isreal group, on comparing the effectiveness of teaching by native speakers or by those from the same background. The study showed that learning from those who share the same background demonstrates an advantage at least for beginners, despite flaws in accents. With one teacher from Brazil and one from Portugal, we have the best of both worlds.

There are ten students in our class. Usually William and I sit in the front to the left. Behind us is a young couple with the girl from Venezuela and boy from Italy. They are difinitely ahead of us. The other six students sit to the right.

Rodrigo and Juliana prepared the courses carefully. They post materials to the site online and organize the classes according to the curricula. They led the courses with lectures, demonstrations, and interactive activities. Because one student couldn’t come to the class on Wednesday, the original day of class, they changed it to Thursday after asking the rest of the class.

The head of the local SPEAK also helped out in the first class.

Near the swimming pool, there is a cool antique car parking roadside for rent. William took a picture of the contact phone number.