You've probably heard of a polyglot (a speaker of many languages), but what's an omniglot? A speaker of all languages! Our mission is to bring as many languages as possible to as many learners as possible, matching eager students with local teachers. We're here to celebrate the linguistic diversity of the Ocean State and create a community of language lovers.
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We offer a variety of language classes for children and adults. We have workshops for complete beginners, school-year classes for kids of all levels, tutoring for middle and high schoolers, and classes for heritage speakers. For adults, we offer classes, private lessons, and conversation groups. Please click on a language below to see available options.
If a class is full, please sign up for the waitlist. We may be able to add another section if there is enough interest. And if you can't find what you're looking for, let us know at info@omniglotsri.com; our goal is to add classes to meet the needs of our community.
Laura Healy started Omniglots because she wanted a place for Barrington kids (including her own!) to learn languages. She has a master's degree in romance languages and literatures from Harvard, and she teaches in the writing program at the Harvard Extension School. As an undergraduate at Brown, Laura studied translation, and she translates poetry and children's books from Spanish into English. Before the pandemic, she and her family spent three years in Germany, where she learned about European language pedagogy and different approaches to raising multilingual children.
Emmy Douglas earned a PhD in English with an emphasis in the translation of medieval languages from the University of Arkansas. She also has degrees in Spanish, French, and creative writing/translation. She loves learning languages because it helps her communicate with more people and affords her the opportunity to discover new perspectives. She has nineteen years of teaching experience, and when she’s not in the classroom, she is spending time with her family at music concerts or at home playing with their dog.
Jana Bloechl grew up in Germany and worked as a social worker there before moving with her family to Rhode Island. She received her master's degree in Social Work from the University of Applied Sciences of Münster and her bachelor's from Cologne University of Applied Sciences. She is looking forward to using her experiences as a social worker and as a mother of two bilingual children to help expose others to the benefits of using multiple languages in their lives.
Sofia Checchi is pursuing a B.A. in Education Studies and Linguistics at Brown University. Her passion for multilingual education stems from her diverse linguistic upbringing. Growing up in a multilingual home in Los Angeles, she spoke Italian with her mother, English with her father, and Spanish with her friends and community. To further expand her linguistic repertoire, she now studies Portuguese at Brown. Sofia is dedicated to helping others develop their language skills and has experience as an ESL teaching assistant in both private and public school settings.
Heidi Wall grew up in South Korea and graduated from Pukyung National University. She has a background in early childhood education, including experience as a Pre-K teacher at Montessori School of Barrington, and currently works at a Navy Child Development Center. As a native Korean speaker, Heidi is excited to share the Korean language and culture with others in an engaging, practical, and welcoming environment. Her experience as an educator and as the mother of a bilingual child has given her a special appreciation for language development and the connections that can be created through learning another language.
Henry Robbins is a senior at Brown University studying History and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies. Originally from Annapolis, Maryland, he was introduced to multilingual environments early on—he vividly remembers visiting his grandparents in Portugal and hearing as many as five languages spoken around the dinner table. He has studied both French and Portuguese in depth, and after graduation, he will pursue a Master of Arts in Teaching in Social Studies at Brown. He hopes to carry the skills he develops at Omniglots into his future career as a teacher.
We encourage our students to always keep in mind why they are studying a language, and we strive to keep our classes fun and meaningful so that the class itself becomes something to look forward to.
Learning a language is not something that happens overnight; it requires repeated exposure over time. We take every opportunity to expose our students to the languages they're studying, both inside and outside of class.
We are always looking for ways for our students to apply the language they've learned in ways that are meaningful to them. Getting students to a point where they can use the language — watching a foreign film, interpreting for a neighbor, writing a love letter — is our ultimate goal.