While growing up in the Bronx as a young Jewish boy, Sidney Sheres’ mother taught him Ladino, a language spoken in few parts of the world today.
The mixture of Spanish, Hebrew and other languages was spoken by Sephardic Jews in medieval Spain. During the Spanish Inquisition, its speakers fled the country, taking their language with them.
“Maybe that’s why I’m so interested in language,” the Manhattan Beach resident said on a recent afternoon. “It came from my history.”
Spheres, a former information technology analyst for Boeing, is developing a new software program he calls Conversation Space to help both native and new English speakers improve their language skills.
“We have a large group of people coming to America who all have one thing in common: They need to speak English,” he said. “Otherwise, they may be relegated to a lower income bracket.”
He gave the example of a doctor from another country who moves to the U.S. but can’t practice because she can’t communicate effectively.
He also thinks his software could help native English speakers who want to improve their public speaking skills.
“Conversation Space is really about bringing back the art of conversation,” he said.
Sheres began developing the software about two years ago after being laid off from Boeing, where he had worked for 10 years on classified space programs.
Before Boeing, Sheres taught special education with a focus on language. In the mid-1980s, he foresaw the rise in computer technology. So he taught himself to program and created educational software programs, such as Chatterbox, which he designed to help students with dyslexia.
Conversation Space incorporates music, another of Sheres’ passions. He plays guitar, drums, bass and sitar and performs at the Sunrise Senior Living facility and his synagogue Congregation Tikvat Jacob.
Sheres recorded South Bay artists, including Mike Sullivan of Hermosa Beach and Abby Hankins of South Bay Country, for Conversation Space.
“Music helps people enjoy and remember what they’ve learned — reuse it, too,” he said. “A lot of language learning is so boring. It doesn’t stick in your head.”
His idea is that people can improve their speaking skills by imitating singers.
“Good speaking is a lot like singing,” he said. “The perfect person to teach speaking is a singer.”
So far, his venture has been self funded. He anticipates future funding will come from advertisers or licensing the software.
“The first thing I have to prove,” he said, “is that the market wants what I have to offer.” A free beta version of Conversion Space is available at ConversationSpace.com. ER
