Interlangua 1/3: No Fuzz / No Buzz

My Interlangua Tutors: Marco Antonio Garcia (left end) and Sheny Recinos (third from right)

My favorite innovative learning company, Interlangua, is calling it quits. I’m in mourning. My twice a week one-on-one Spanish conversation classes via high-quality, streaming video have been the highlight of 2008. Interlangua opened my mind to possibility in online learning. I experienced non-boring online learning that didn’t inspire me to clean my desk.

Interlangua. What a class act! They recruited wonderful, educated, gifted, prepared Spanish language tutors, who taught me– at home in Houston– from Guatemala. They invested in wonderful rock-solid technology that gave us consistently smooth streaming video and (with decent headphones) clear sound. No fuzz/No buzz.

Anyone who’s had a handful of video conversations via Skype knows how frustrating that experience often is. Interlangua was way beyond Skype. There were very few stutters and no annoying noises.

I have my last two lessons this week. If I’m able to learn more about how co-founders Susan Mraca and Peter Spevacek found the tutors, I’ll definitely blog about it. By the way, they also had Chinese tutors teaching via streaming video from China.