It is summertime and I hope the sun is shining wherever you are out there in Linguistland! As we head into the summer we're not expecting to make many changes to our system itself but we do have some news regarding our staff. Some of you may have already spoken with AJ and Rob on the system. If not, make sure to sign up to speak with them soon!
AJ Hoge is an English teacher from San Francisco who has spent time in Japan. He also runs a well known language learning blog called Effortless Language Acquisition which you can find at the following URL: http://effortlessacquisition.blogspot.com/.
Rob Miwa is actually a good friend of mine who is from Toronto but has been playing hockey in Japan for the last ten years or more. He has certainly had a lot of experience in learning a second language and what's required to do so successfully. In addition to Rob and AJ, Sean Sibbett has recently joined us here at Linguist Headquarters. Sean will be helping us on various technical, marketing and community related tasks. Some of you may have already seen his responses on the Forum. In addition, Sean will be scheduling discussion times so please also come and introduce yourselves. Sean's wife is French-Canadian so he can sympathize with all of you who have faced the situation of being surrounded by a language that you don't speak well enough. When Sean visits with his wife's family he realizes just how limited his grasp of French is even though he spent years studying it in school. Sean can't wait for The Linguist to offer our system for learning French so he can make that jump to fluency he so desperately wants! Sign up and talk with Sean, Rob and AJ. Of course, this doesn't mean you should ignore the rest of us: Steve, Jill, Tracey, Kerri, Tom and myself! We all look forward to more interaction in our growing community of Linguists.
