🚀 go-pugleaf

I've tried to post this information to four newsgroups,
with a distribution of ba, but I haven't seen it show up anywhere, so
I'm trying again, this time posting to each group separately.  My  
apologies if you've see it before; I didn't mean for that to happen!

The Palo Alto Adult School (part of the Palo Alto Unified School District)
offers a Language Exchange on Thursday evenings, from 7:30-9:30.  The
Language Exchange brings together students from the district's ESL
(English as a Second Language) classes, other non-native speakers of
English, and native speakers of English in an informal atmosphere of
conversational exchange.  I've been going for about a year, and I find
it an excellent way to get in some practice at speaking another language.

Participants divide into groups based on language interest.  At the moment,
there are French, German, Japanese, Chinese, and Spanish groups.  We've
also had Russian, Tagalog, Greek, and other groups, when there were
native speakers of those languages available.  Generally, we spend an
hour speaking the group language, and an hour speaking English.  This
gives everyone an opportunity to practice one language and also offer
assistance in his/her native tongue.  It's also a great chance to learn
about another culture and teach someone about your own.  We choose our
own topics, and there's no textbook.

The assumption is that participants have a level of conversational
fluency in the language they'd like to practice.  In other words, the
Language Exchange is not a place to try to learn a language from
scratch.

The Language Exchange operates on the quarter system, just like the
other courses offered by the Palo Alto Adult School.  The current
quarter is just about over, but the Spring Quarter begins in a couple

of weeks.  You can get information about registering, location, etc.
by calling the Palo Alto Adult School at (415) 329-3752 between 8am
and 4:30pm weekdays (or Mon.-Wed. during the quarter, they have evening
hours between 6:30 and 9:30).

There is no charge for the Language Exchange to non-native speakers of
English.  Native English speakers pay $20/quarter.  Since the school district
is a non-profit entity, I didn't consider posting this information as
a violation of the Net's non-commercial guidelines.  I saw it more as
a public service announcement, like announcing a low-cost weekend
rabies vaccination clinic for pets.  I certainly don't stand to reap
financial gain from this announcement.

Cheers,
--
Michele Patin                      IBM/TCPIP: patin@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com
IBM                                INTERNET:  patin@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com
Personal Systems Multimedia        VNET:      PATIN at ALMADEN
The above are my personal opinions, and in no way represent IBM.
~