Looking for English conversation partners

Submitted by FM thinkdifferent on Fri, 12/19/2008 at 3:59am.

Hi to all,

I was thinking I need to improve my English.

Reading and writing is quite ok.

My main problem is speaking,which is not surprising since I lived all my life in Italy.

So I thought Internet could solve my problem. I can speak with mother-tongue English people on Skype without leaving my country.

So I search for people who are:

- very fluent (better if native speaker) on English language

- owner of a fast internet connection ( "what you said?" "I didn't receive anything" and astronomical lag make a conversation an ordeal for both speakers) and of Skype

We can talk about chess (and I can teach you one or two things) and about other things as well.

It could be a win-win: you learn a bit of chess and I better my english.

Of course I did not intend to give really structured chess lessons for two reasons:

1) it's quite tiring and I don't do it for free

2) if I talk only about chess I learn only a subset,chess-related, of the English language.

So, what do you think?

» posted in thinkdifferent's Blog

| 396 reads | 4 comments

Comments:

by parsnip - 16 days ago
devon United Kingdom

Member Since: Feb 2009
Member Points: 36

take your pick.

by Pawncho - 10 months ago
Missouri United States

Member Since: Dec 2008
Member Points: 6

I am a long-time teacher of English (high school teacher), holding several degrees (B.A., M.S., and Ed. Spec.).

We could try it and see if the exchange is ... beneficial.

The advantage for you would be that I am not a chess prostitute, hopelessly consumed and addicted with chess (and therefore, not overly concerned about chess conversations). I would ask some general questions about chess based upon your experiences in that world (domain). For my level of play, there are already plenty of available teaching sources.

The advantage for me would be ... gaining a new perspective from someone from another part of the world.

Peace