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samespeak's profile Rowan Pita / 46, Female / Member since June 2009 / Last seen 5 months ago

I love languages with a passion and have studied Japanese, French, German and Maori, traveled all over the world and met amazing people from many countries.

My background is in English teaching (MA in Applied Linguistics (Waikato, NZ). I have taught for many years as an English teacher beginning in 1986 in Auckland at a secondary school but I really learned how to teach in Japan where I spent 6 wonderful years teaching English. I taught at Japanese High Schools in Hyogo Prefecture for 3 years and met some wonderful students and teachers. I then worked for Language Resources Ltd based in Kobe where I taught in places like Kobe Seiko (Kobe Steel Company) and Port Island Hotel as well as members of the Japanese Rugby team. This was an innovative and cutting edge company that also trained teachers in CELTA and developed some amazing English Language Resources. I also really enjoyed teaching Japanese housewives in my neighbourhood and Japanese friends. I did of course, learn Japanese and paid for private lessons with a university student who taught me a lot. My daughter was born in Japan and learned to speak Japanese at her school and I also taught English to the children there. I also began my teacher training career in Japan as I taught courses to young university graduates who wanted to teach English in Japan.

When I arrived back in New Zealand I spent more years teaching and managing English Departments in small and large secondary schools before joining the New Zealand Qualifications Authority. It was here that I expanded my teacher training background as I facilitated training courses for teachers in the country and developed teaching and learning resources for national publication.

I then became a Director of an English Language School and then became one of two Academic Managers overseeing the New Zealand and Chinese, Japanese and Korean campuses. I loved this work as I got to manage teachers, develop teacher training courses and facilitate the development of teaching packages and assessments.

In between more teaching and managing English language departments and Language Faculties in Secondary schools, I joined the Ministry of Education to manage a large portfolio focused on raising achievement for Maori students at Regional and National levels. It was during this time that I got the idea for a business concept where I could put all of my experience and passion for teaching and languages and developed samespeak.com.

Samespeak is all about world communication, real conversations with real people and helping people to communicate naturally. You can call native speakers of English (Samespeak coaches) from your computer or phone and talk to them in real time on a range of interesting topics based on natural conversational lessons, make friends from around the world and really accelerate your spoken English.

Learning should be fun, innovative and a real experience. “I hear I forget, I see I remember, I do and I understand”. If we could connect with people around the world easily and without prejudice, imagine the world we would have?