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How to start a conversation exchange? | ||
Tags: Tandem/Language Exchange | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4836 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 1 of 2 17 March 2012 at 4:18pm | IP Logged |
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Greetings!
So I'm about to be a senior next year for my undergraduate career, and I face a problem many of my fellow classmates face: no formal language classes. Many of us are abroad right now, and in the fall when we come back, most people are going to just be taking classes for our majors (The majority of us are International Business with a functional such as finance). I've been talking to some of my friends, and we will have all finished taking language courses for our required minors, and lack the time to take formal courses in our second or third foreign language. I had the idea of setting up an exchange that would happen weekly, be relatively informal and very fun to get people to come, and be set up so that we could keep up with our first second languages as well as work on or start new ones. My plan was to have people send me the languages they want to practice ahead of time, and then come up with groups that would break off for 30min cycles. I thought a 2 hour time block would be good, which would give us 4 blocks. People would practice at least 2 languages, and could in theory do a different one for each time block yielding 4. I'd try and reserve a fairly large area of a restaurant at an off time, let's say "prehappyhour" time, and we could chat in the TL's over apps and drinks. I feel like this would be a great way to get us all to keep sharp in our TL's and to work on our weaker, newer languages, as well as be a great social thing for students and faculty. Has anyone else had experience setting up a large language exchange group with multiple languages, not just an English/Something Else binary type that is popular in foreign countries? I welcome all ideas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4799 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 2 17 March 2012 at 5:40pm | IP Logged |
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My own experience in this area is less than satisfying. I live in a town with a major university, a fair-sized religious college, and a community college. Spanish classes are very popular and always overbooked, and several local private tutors run Spanish classes of their own which are likewise well attended. There is a local English-Spanish group such as you discuss, and there are seldom more that 3 or 4 people in attendance, with two being the most frequently seen number of members showing up. The official membership roles show a large membership, but almost nobody ever comes around to the meetings.
So maybe it takes more than just the opportunity to chat to draw people in. Personally, I'm not sure what it would take to insure good attendance. Good luck. I really hope it works out for you. I would dearly love to have a large active group like that near me. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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