Portland, OR (PRWEB) July 14, 2010

Speak Shop, the award-winning provider of live Spanish lessons by video chat, has now delivered more than 15,000 hours of one-on-one Spanish lessons.

“I remember asking our first customer, ‘Do you think you will be able to learn Spanish this way?’ Now we have the numbers to show that it works,” said Clay Cooper, Founder and CEO

“When we started Speak Shop, no one was teaching Spanish using videoconferencing technology,” recalled Clay Cooper, Founder and CEO. “I remember asking our first customer, ‘Do you think you will be able to learn Spanish this way?’ She gave us a lot of affirmation and that fueled us to keep going,” he said. “Now we have the numbers to show that it works.”

Speak Shop, a family-owned business, was created to bring the world closer through language instruction. Speak Shop’s 12 Spanish teachers are based in Guatemala and Nicaragua and have found greater independence and financial stability by teaching online. “I am a single mother and sole earner, and Speak Shop has been very important in helping me provide for my daughter and improve my economic situation,” says Speak Shop teacher Mayra Juarez.

About Speak Shop Founded in 2004, Speak Shop is a certified B Corp (for benefit company) that increases cross-cultural foreign language education and generates fair wage businesses for talented teachers in developing countries. Customers take personalized, cross-cultural, conversational Spanish lessons at their convenience using a computer and high speed Internet connection. Speak Shop helps students learn Spanish online for good. For more details visit http://www.speakshop.com

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Portland, OR, (PRWEB) June 9, 2010 — Speak Shop, the award-winning provider of live online Spanish classes and certified B Corp (for benefit company),

is pleased to announce the Speak Shop Breakup Award. The award recognizes enthusiastic, happy customers who have stopped taking lessons with Speak Shop.

The idea was inspired by “breakup” emails from customers who were excited about achieving their goals and ready to move on. Cindy Cooper, Co-founder, says, “We get very nice notes from customers who are about to close their

accounts that basically say, ‘It’s not you, it’s me….’ I thought: We should have an award.”

Kara, a busy medical resident in Florida, is the first Breakup Award winner. Her breakup note said: “I hold Speak Shop in high regard and truly value the services you offer. I am now able to communicate with my Spanish-speaking patients.” She added, “You offer an invaluable service, especially to medical personnel and students. The classes are affordable and extremely flexible. Speak Shop has offered me the ability to fit Spanish classes into my very hectic and unpredictable schedule. I have been able to develop a personal relationship with my teacher, Aracely, who is in Guatemala. In addition to improving my grammar, she has helped me understand cultural issues which are very pertinent to my Latin American patients.” Kara will receive a Speak Shop t-shirt and lifelong thanks.

Speak Shop is a social mission business, created to make it easy to take live Spanish lessons online and to provide fair wages to language teachers in impoverished countries. For about $10 per lesson, customers use their computers to meet face-to-face with their Spanish tutor at their convenience. Speak Shop teachers are Spanish instruction specialists living in Guatemala and Nicaragua. Speak Shop enables them to operate their own tutoring business, set their own rates and hours and connect with customers all over the world.

Many of Speak Shop’s former customers return to brush up, or even travel to Central America to take lessons in person. “Even after they reach their goals and a comfort level with the language, our best customers continue meeting with their tutors,” says Founder and CEO Clay Cooper. “Working with a teacher who is completely focused on their needs, they learn more quickly, and they have fun. The fun factor is usually a big change from the methods they’ve tried in the past. It’s motivating for them and rewarding for us.”
About Speak Shop
Speak Shop is a certified B Corp (for benefit company) founded in 2004 to increase access to cross-cultural foreign language education and to generate fair wage businesses for people in developing countries. Speak Shop charges students a membership fee of $9.99 to $39.99 per month depending on the number of lessons they plan to take. Speak Shop makes it possible to learn Spanish online with live Spanish tutors in Latin America. Customers (i.e. Spanish students) schedule, purchase and take one-on-one Spanish lessons by webcam. Connected to a world market and empowered as micro-entrepreneurs, tutors move from poverty to prosperity. Customers are able to take personalized, cross-cultural, conversational Spanish lessons at their convenience using a computer and high speed Internet connection. For more details visit http://www.speakshop.com.

Portland, OR — February 10, 2010— Speak Shop, http://www.speakshop.com, the first and only registered B Corporation (for benefit company) offering online Spanish lessons via webcam, is pleased to announce Rebeca Gonzalez as the 2009 Tutor of the Year.

Speak Shop tutors are micro-business owners, setting their own hours and rates. Most have a minimum of five years experience teaching Spanish to foreigners, and Speak Shop trains them on the technology and business skills required to be strong online instructors. Each tutor’s success rests largely on her skills and motivation.

Based in Antigua, Guatemala, Rebeca started teaching Spanish online at Speak Shop in 2006. While balancing a challenging law school schedule, Rebeca taught 755 lessons in 2009. She has developed a growing and loyal client base, consistently garnering high lesson feedback ratings and praise from her students.

“I am very thankful for the opportunity to participate in Speak Shop,” says Rebeca, “I know that this award comes with great responsibility, and I am prepared to demonstrate that I can do even more.”

Speak Shop co-founder Cindy Cooper says, “Rebeca is one of those people who you know will go out of her way to do an excellent job. She cares about her work and has an ethic of constantly wanting to improve. We’re very fortunate to have Rebeca as a Speak Shop Spanish tutor.”

About Speak Shop

Speak Shop was founded in 2004 to increase access to cross-cultural foreign language education and to generate economic opportunity for people in developing countries. People around the world use Speak Shop to take live, face-to-face Spanish classes online by webcam. For more details visit http://www.speakshop.com.

Clay Cooper had always struggled to learn Spanish. It wasn’t until he studied in Guatemala at age 31 that he finally succeeded.

Untours Catalog Fall 2009

During that trip he also learned that hard work and education did not always pay off. With limited opportunities in Guatemala, even his university-educated tutor lived in poverty. That experience inspired (www.SpeakShop.com), an online fair trade language tutoring business Clay founded with his wife, Cindy Cooper.

Speak Shop gives language tutors the training and technology to become micro-entrepreneurs, reaching customers worldwide and teaching via webcam. While tutors improve their livelihoods, by setting their own rates and hours, people who hunger to learn a language log onto their website to take one-on-one lessons.  These are only two of the many reasons Speak Shop was a finalist for the 2007 Project Enterprise Contest on PBS, which highlighted social entrepreneurs.

Untours Catalog Learn a Language for Good

Currently, Speak Shop’s tutors come from Guatemala, Nicaragua and Brazil. Cindy & Clay hope their business will grow to include many countries and generate a variety of cross-cultural connections. In addition, the software they have created will be usable by other businesses that address poverty.

“For me, the true benefit of an immersion program was developing a friendship with my tutor,” said Clay. “I now care deeply about what happens in Guatemala.  I hope that through Speak Shop we can share this experience at a global level and increase cultural awareness and concern.”

Check out the website at www.speakshop.com, and try a free lesson!

Speak Shop Leads the Industry in Social Performance Standards by Becoming the First Language Instruction Provider to Achieve B Corp Certification

PORTLAND, Ore.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Speak Shop, http://www.speakshop.com, a pioneer in online language tutoring via webcam, reported today they have been certified a B (Benefit) Corporation. B Corporations are a new kind of company that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. The certification performance standards are comprehensive and transparent. They measure a company’s impact on its employees, suppliers, community, and the environment. Certified B Corporations meet higher standards of social and environmental performance and accountability.

Created to fight poverty and to connect people around the world for face-to-face language lessons, Speak Shop offers customized, one-on-one Spanish lessons which customers can reserve and take at their convenience using their computer and a webcam. Speak Shop is the only company that strategically invites low-income tutors in developing countries to teach online as micro businesses owners. Speak Shop’s global customer base has provided tutors with sustainable income, and Speak Shop teaches tutors new computing and business skills.

“B Corporation certification represents what we believe in. We want to be part of a community of businesses that are committed to solving social and environmental problems. We also like embedding these values into our governing documents to ensure clarity and common purpose within the company and with investors and other stakeholders,” says Co-founder, Cindy Cooper.

About Speak Shop

Speak Shop was founded in 2004 to increase access to cross-cultural foreign language education and to generate economic opportunity for people in developing countries. Speak Shop makes it possible to schedule, purchase and take one-on-one Spanish lessons by webcam with tutors in Latin America. Connected to a world market and empowered as micro-entrepreneurs, tutors move from poverty to prosperity. Customers are able to take personalized, cross-cultural lessons at their convenience using a computer and high speed Internet connection. For more details visit http://www.speakshop.com.

About B Corp

B Corporations are a new type of corporation which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Corporations are unlike traditional responsible businesses because they: meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards, institutionalize stakeholder interests, and build collective voice through the power of a unifying brand. For more details visit http://www.bcorporation.net/.

Back in 1998, Clay Cooper took an immersion Spanish class in Antigua, Guatemala.  He was impressed with the effectiveness of the method.

But he told me he was stunned to discover that his tutor, a university-educated man, lived in poverty. He told me that the tutors were paid low wages and had few students in the off-season.

Cooper told the Miami Herald: “I felt that the only thing preventing him from earning more money was just not enough [year-round] demand for his services.”

Cooper and his wife Cindy, of Portland, Ore., decided to set up an Internet-based business that would link tutors with students year-round and that would pay them a fair wage. Their company is called Speak Shop.

He said that Skype proved to be an effective method to deliver lessons on video or audio. He said even tutors in Guatemala and Nicaragua who had not previously used computers found Skype to be easy.

Students go to the Speak Shop website to pick a tutor and schedule a class. They pay tutors $7 to $10 per hour–about twice the going rate locally. Plus, students pay Speak Shop a monthly stipend based on how many lessons are taken per month.

Over the years, I’ve taken Spanish, but feel stuck. I’ll see if my tutor, Osberto, can move me along with a little help from Skype. I’ll let you know it goes, amigos.

Twice a week, Margo Griffin, who lives in Denver, Colorado, has a one-on-one Spanish lesson with her teacher, Mayra Juárez, who lives miles and miles away, in Antigua, Guatemala. Both attend from the comfort of their homes via the Internet, a webcam and an innovative socially responsible business called Speak Shop.

Mayra Juárez earns extra money by offering Spanish classes over the internet.

Antigua draws thousands of international students each summer to its Spanish schools. But in the off season, many teachers are out of work. Clay Cooper, founder of Speak Shop, noticed this when he took classes here in 1998, and thought the Internet could connect teachers and students year-round. From those roots, Speak Shop was born. Griffin schedules classes on Speak Shop’s Web page, pays online and “meets” Juárez at a specified time, either using the Internet communications tool Skype or Speak Shop’s Web-based software. Mostly, they talk and review exercises Juárez sent by email. But they can also check a word’s spelling via chat and its meaning with Speak Shop’s translator. “This is the ultimate program,” Griffin says.

Thanks to Speak Shop, Juárez, who also teaches at a Spanish school in Antigua, gets year-round business and makes twice as much an hour as she does at the school. She says Speak Shop has been a lifesaver during a time when tighter travel budgets and the country’s high crime rate are keeping visitors away. “Speak Shop has supported me since August,” says Juárez. “I didn’t have any students at the school, because there weren’t any.” Speak Shop charges $10 a class, plus a monthly membership fee of $9.99 to $39.99, depending on how many classes you plan to take. The class fee goes to the teacher.

BY JOSEFINA LOZA

Once a week Steve Milhollin meets his Spanish tutor, even though they’re thousands of miles apart.

He lives in Carter Lake, Iowa. The tutor, Claritza Morales, is in Antigua, Guatemala.

They connect online through Speak Shop, a California-based [sic, Oregon-based] firm that offers tutoring to students worldwide and employs teachers in impoverished countries.

Milhollin liked the idea of connecting with a native speaker online. But little did he know that his Spanish lessons would blossom into something more – a friendship.

Milhollin signed up with the language site last summer. There, he schedules class times, pays for lessons and virtually “meets” his tutor, Morales.

They talk through headsets and review Spanish exercises she e-mails to him. They also use online translators to look up new words.

Morales, a chatty woman in her mid-40s, doesn’t speak much English. So the translator comes in handy.

She’s married with five kids. Milhollin has met them all – online, of course. He’s a 62-year-old retired computer programmer who wears wire-rim glasses and has a 1970s Burt Reynolds mustache.

“We’ve become really great friends,” he said.

He speaks Spanish quite well. He reads at a fourth-grade level, mostly “Judy Moody” children’s books in Spanish.

Morales has helped him with the language. And with a lot more.

When Milhollin fell gravely ill, Morales was there. He lost hair and weight and he got weak. Morales stayed with him online.

As he got better, their lessons progressed. They met more frequently.

“I get a real buzz from Spanish,” Milhollin said. “It’s like classical music. I get chills down my spine whenever I hear it.”

The tutor’s support touched Milhollin. So he started digging a little more into her personal life.

He learned Antigua is home to dozens of Spanish schools that offer immersion language programs. Competition is stiff among tutors, like Morales, who offer cheap private lessons at the schools in the summer to students from the United States, Europe, Japan and Korea.

But in the offseason, many tutors have no work.

So companies such as Speak Shop have sprung up in recent years, offering online language classes through videoconferencing.

Tutors set their own price, between $7 and $10 per hour. Speak Shop founder Clay Cooper said the company doesn’t take any of their earnings, instead charging students an initial fee. However, tutors who use the local Spanish school’s computers to give online classes pay a small fee for the space.

Morales didn’t have a home computer. She would drive – or sometimes walk – an hour or so to a nearby school to log online to conduct her lessons.

“I felt bad,” Milhollin said. “Instead of spending time with her family, she was tutoring me. I wanted to help.”

So he bought her a computer.

“It was a wonderful gesture,” Cooper said. “I was really impressed with his generosity. He wanted to make sure Claritza could tutor more students but also have time with her children.”

Indeed she does. Morales works from her home and makes twice as much tutoring.

As things turned out, Milhollin was her lifesaver.

• Contact the writer: 444-1075, j.loza@owh.com

The 19-year-old needed the class to graduate this spring, but the school couldn’t afford to hire a Spanish teacher.

Jackie Spinos, a student at the Burlington Evening Academy, learns from a Guatemalan tutor via Skype. (JOSH REYNOLDS FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE)

The That meant Spinos would have to take an expensive online class, a community college course, or go to summer school – an option that would have delayed graduation.

Then school administrators discovered Speak Shop, a program that connects students to tutors in Guatemala and Venezuela. Students and teachers use Skype, a free software program that allows them to talk to and see one another one on one.

“It was a perfect fit for our evening academy,” said Burlington High principal Patrick Larkin. “We have a lot of kids trying to finish off high school diplomas. To sit with a native speaker one on one, I can’t imagine a better format. It’s also helping people in Third World countries gain a fair wage.”

The Burlington Evening Academy is the first school in the nation to use Speak Shop and is among the first in the state to take advantage of videoconferencing in the classroom, officials said.

Speak Shop was founded by Portland, Ore., resident Clay Cooper in 2005 as a way for people to learn Spanish from a native speaker without the cost of paying for an immersion program. Until this year, all his students were adults learning the language for work or travel, he said.

Superintendent Eric Conti of Burlington learned about Speak Shop through a relative and thought it might work in the evening program, which offers classes at night for students trying to earn enough credits for graduation.

There are about 20 students in the evening program, and each year there are new challenges, said Georgia Devine, director of the evening academy. Each student needs different credits for graduation, so the program has to be tailored to meet students’ needs. This year, five students needed art, for example, so the program hired an art teacher.
The students participating in the evening program have passed the 10th-grade MCAS exams required for graduation and typically have a year’s or two years’ worth of credits remaining, Larkin said.

Most are students who have to work during the day for financial reasons or who have struggled to keep up in a traditional seven-period day schedule, he said. The program has eight teachers but not all are used each night depending on the schedule.

But just two of the students had not met their foreign language requirement of two years. Thanks to the Speak Shop program, the two girls are taking Spanish this year and plan to graduate in the spring, Devine said.

“It’s difficult to meet that requirement because we are not going to hire a teacher for two students,” Devine said. “It’s been an incredible godsend.”
Each Tuesday evening, the two students each meet for 45 minutes with Milvia Vásquez, the Guatemalan tutor arranged through Speak Shop. The class is conducted in Spanish.

Spinos, one of the students taking the class, said she likes it much more than a regular class.

“It’s really different,” she said. “It’s more one on one and you can understand more.”

Without it, Spinos said, she probably would have taken a summer class and would not have received her diploma this spring.

Larkin said it’s a pilot program that could be expanded to other areas of the school if successful. So far, all signs are pointing in that direction, he said.

The students are engaged and appear to be doing well, school officials said. The students were assessed at the beginning of the class and will take a test at the end to see how well they’ve progressed, Larkin said.

“I definitely think not too far down the road if we can show the quality of the instruction, we’d be crazy not to look at it from a variety of different angles,” Larkin said.

He said it wouldn’t take the place of the existing foreign languages program but could be used to supplement it and help as many students as possible meet requirements.

“We’re ahead of the curve on this, and we’re happy to be looking at it,” Larkin said. “It looks pretty promising.”

Cooper came up with the idea for Speak Shop after traveling to Guatemala to learn Spanish at an immersion school in 1998.

He was 31 at the time and wasn’t confident he’d come home speaking Spanish.

“I got the best instruction I ever could’ve wanted,” he said. “I thought, wow, if I can do this, anyone can learn a language this way.”

He talked to friends and family about it, many of whom said they would love to speak the language but couldn’t take the time to go or couldn’t afford it.

So Cooper founded Speak Shop as a way for students to use videoconferencing with tutors in Central America. Cooper said he has a partnership with an immersion school in Guatemala that provides the names of its best tutors.

Vásquez, for example, has more than 13 years of Spanish tutoring experience and has taken standard proficiency exams.

Students pay a user fee through Speak Shop and a tutor fee that goes to the tutors.

The monthly user fee is $9.99 for up to five lessons; $19.99 for up to 20 lessons; and $39.99 for unlimited lessons. In addition, students pay the tutors $8 to $10 an hour.

In Burlington’s case, the district is paying the cost for the students, Conti said. Hiring a Spanish teacher would have cost the district $35 an hour, Larkin said.

Heidi Guarino, a spokeswoman for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said the program appears to be a good way to tie new technology to global learning. She said the department doesn’t track what new programs are used in the classrooms, but that more districts are taking advantage of technology to enhance learning.

For example, several schools in Massachusetts take part in a program called Virtual High School, which allows students to take classes online. However, Speak Shop is different in that all learning is done live and one on one.

“Overall I would say this is a good use of 21st-century skills and if used appropriately allows students to benefit from the expertise of educators in another country at very little cost,” Guarino said.