Who are the Boomalang speakers and how will they navigate these conversations?

Everyone you speak with is a native speaker of the target language–recruited, screened and regularly trained by Boomalang. Most importantly, they’re friendly, patient, engaging, and have been in your seat before. While most have a background in some form of language learning (whether it’s teaching, linguistics, learning their own second/third language, etc.), most “instruction” is shelved during Boomalang conversations. Instead of being your tutor, their goal is to make you feel comfortable while also gently pushing you to speak and take chances in a judgement-free environment. 

They won’t correct you or stop the flow, but will allow for pauses to give you the space you sometimes need and crave in order to form responses to their questions and think more richly about a topic or question. While the first minute or two will be “warm up” (and feel free to ask them any questions you may like in this period), they will then focus on the Discussion Topics provided by your instructor. It doesn’t mean it becomes a formal interview; rather, it’s a real conversation that goes places, just framed within the context of your instructor’s topics to make sure it’s on track with what you’re studying in class.

This is a part-time job for many of them and full-time for some. In addition to regular internal quality control checks to ensure high performance, you as a student are also presented with a survey at the end of each conversation if you choose to provide a rating and feedback on the experience speaking with them. They also adhere to a Code of Conduct similar to that which you agreed to when signing up with respect to what is appropriate and inappropriate during these conversations.