We believe the best approach to achieve this is to have conversations about common subjects, such as current events or shared interests, like the love of the ocean or sailing. This helps create a community where these conversations can happen more naturally. We like to think of this environment as similar to a port, a place where people gather from all over the world to share goods, experiences, and especially stories.

Our mission is to create this kind of environment online, where people from all over can gather to share stories and improve their English speaking skills by working together with others in the same boat; a Port of Conversation, if you will.

This will help you speak English because you will have:

A supportive community with like-minded individuals
Real conversations about topics you are interested in
Practice for the read world so you feel comfortable using English outside of lessons

Who We Are

''One of Rachelle's main strengths lies in her ability to create original activities. In addition to the fact that they appeared to be fun to do, they were also applicable to real life outside the classroom. Ms. Deutsch had created her own listening activity, for which she had written a (natural-sounding) script that she had two friends record for her. This was no easy thing to do, so she should be commended for the time and effort she took to create this activity.''

~Noortje de Weers (Practicum Evaluator)

''Ms. Deutsch demonstrated an appreciation of lesson design, specifically, an awareness of the links between stages in a lesson and their relevance to one another. During the lesson planning stage, Rachelle revised her lessons quite substantially and the decisions she made on what to exclude or alter worked to improve the flow of her lessons. She also tried to create links between individual lessons by referencing previous lesson material, recycling vocabulary or via homework, which served as a base to expanded upon in the subsequent lesson.''

~Michael Belevsky (Sponsoring Teacher)

About Us

Here at Port of Conversation, we believe real-life conversations are important for learning to speak English more effectively as an additional language.

Rachelle has her undergraduate degree in Linguistics with a minor in Cognitive Science, and the TESL Certificate from Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. During her degree, she volunteered as an EAL Peer Mentor for 16 months where she held conversations with her peers to help them improve their English. One cool fact about Rachelle is that she's sailed to an island that doesn't exist on Google Maps.

Learn more about her undergraduate experiences here.

Rachelle Deutsch

she held conversations with her peers to help them improve their English. One cool fact about Rachelle is that she's sailed to an island that doesn't exist on Google Maps.

Learn more about her here.