This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 24.
Study languages smarter and faster with a quick tip from All Ears English.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast where you'll finally get real native English conversation and fluency for business and life.
We believe in connection, not perfection when it comes to learning English.
Now here are your hosts Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl, coming to you from Boston and New York City, USA.
Hey.
In this episode, you'll get two crucial rules that you should follow when it comes to organizing your own language exchange and find out where to find your language exchange partners online.
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Hey, Michelle.
What's shaking?
Hey, Lindsay.
Not too much.
Not too much.
How are you?
What's new?
Oh, my God.
Not a whole lot.
Not a whole lot.
But lately I've actually been thinking about language exchanges because I've done personally I've done a lot of language exchanges in my life.
Michelle, what languages have you learned in your life?
Um, I've learned a little bit of French.
I've learned some Hebrew.
And I've learned a little bit of Spanish, but I'm not fluent in any of them.
Unfortunately, Lindsay, you're the one you've probably done a lot more.
I know you have.
Well, compared to the polyglots of the world, I've done nothing.
But I can say, yeah, I mean, I've learned French as you have.
So Spanish and Japanese are kind of the languages that I've worked on in my lifetime.
And I found that the immersive method always works best.
Yeah.
Tell us about a language exchange.
What's involved?
Tell us.
Oh, my gosh.
This is such a core piece of your language learning plan, guys.
So when I was living in New York, I really kicked it up with the language exchanges.
I actually found people on different websites, language websites, even Craigslist.
If you find someone Craigslist, always meet in a public place, please.
OK, that's my tip.
But I would, you know, meet language exchange partners who spoke Spanish.
I met up with a guy from Peru, someone from Colombia.
We would just sit in a cafe after work and just speak in Spanish for an hour or half an hour and speak in English for an hour or half an hour.
So we would split that time.
Right, Michelle?
That's really what a language exchange is.
How cool.
That is so cool.
So, I mean, Lindsay, I'm going to call you the language exchange pro.
I mean, if our you know listeners want to get involved in a language exchange, what are some important things for them to remember?
Yeah, so this has to be done right.
And I think a lot of you at this point are gonna go online for this and we'll give you some ideas of where to go and how to do it.
It just makes more sense sometimes to do this from home. the way the world is.
But yeah, there are two things you have to make sure you do.
The first one is that you have to make sure that your partner corrects your mistakes immediately.
But Michelle, should your partner correct all of your mistakes?
What do you think?
I don't think so.
I mean, this kind of goes back to what I learned.
I have a master's degree.
Right.
And I would say a resounding no.
Okay.
Resounding no.
That's good.
That's good.
Okay.
Tell us why.
What did you learn in your master's program?
What do we need to know about this linguistic?
Well, the idea is, I mean, listen.
I will say that I learned about it from a teaching side, like a real teacher's point of view, not necessarily thinking about this from the language exchange point of view.
Now, a lot of times people want everything to be corrected.
Right.
Like any mistake at all.
As a teacher, I really focus on what am I teaching or what are the main things, and like correcting those things, like correcting what you're actually working on.
But there's a lot of different ideas about corrective feedback and research done and what's the best way to do it.
So sometimes I might...
And make a bunch of notes as a student is speaking.
And then at the end, you know, choose some of the most important ones.
Or, you know, do you stop in the moment?
So, you know, I think in a language exchange, it might be a little bit different.
But overall, I think correcting every single one is kind of inhibiting fluency.
Yes.
And, you know, if you correct everything, then it's like it can be distracting.
Right.
So if you're talking and I'm like, Lindsay, no, no, no, no, it's this.
I can't even talk now.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's that's kind of defeating the purpose, I think.
I think that's such a good perspective.
It's so true.
Guys, so we want you to avoid the temptation to tell your partner, correct every mistake.
We know you think that's what works.
That's actually not what works.
So then Michelle, since there's not going to be a lecture from a teacher to start off the lesson, there's not going to be any textbook, there's not going to be an introduction to a tense.
You know how could the two partners talk through what the?
Maybe it's a conversation about what your language goals are, or maybe you do bring in some extra material as a partner to say this is what we're going to work on today.
I do think there needs to be a little bit of extra intentionality in the language exchange, Michelle.
Yeah, I think so, too.
It's good to have a goal.
Yeah.
And that could be something there.
Or maybe you say, like we're going to practice telling stories today from our childhood, our travel stories.
And there you're saying okay well, we're going to be kind of focusing on the past tense there, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you can kind of choose things that bring about maybe a particular grammar point or vocabulary area of vocabulary that you want to work on.
So I think it's good to have some goals like that.
And it's really cool if you're at the same level as your partner.
Now, you don't have to be, right?
Because I could be working with someone who is advanced in English, but I'm a beginner in Spanish.
That's okay, right?
But it's cool if you're at the same level, because then you can say this is the topic we're both working on today.
First, we're going to do it in English, and then we're going to work on it in Spanish.
Right.
Right, right, right.
Yeah.
But I think what it comes down to is you guys in an exchange with a partner.
It's on you, as the person taking control of your learning, to come into that session with the guidance, because it's not your partner's responsibility.
You're not paying them anything.
Right.
They're just showing up and they're willing, they're native speakers, they're willing to correct you, but they're not gonna guide it as a lesson.
So you need to guide it yourself.
That's the first tip, right?
And that's kind of the second tip too, Michelle, but in a different way.
Right, right, right.
You know, I think one of the challenges is when we get one-on-one stuff, we end up just doing small talk.
That's the second problem that we're trying to solve here.
What's the problem with small talk?
I mean, I think that it's good, but you also want to get deeper than small talk.
Small talk is very like, oh, hey, how's the weather, right?
It's easy.
So I think that, you know, getting into those deeper, deeper conversations is very important.
It's more real life.
Yeah.
I mean, I can tell you that in my Spanish, I hit a real plateau.
And, I think, a lot of our listeners.
You guys are at this plateau where you can.
You know exactly what to say.
You have all the structures for the easy surface level small talk.
But when someone asks you to talk about politics in the Middle East right now...
It's going to get a lot harder.
So that's why we want you to, at first, it's okay.
The first 10 minutes, do all the small talk you want.
Talk about the weather, your family, your weekend.
Okay.
But don't let the whole session be about your weekend, because then you're just repeating the same structures you already know how to use.
Right, right, right.
Yeah, that's a good point.
So, Lindsay, where are some places that our listeners can go for a language exchange?
Oh, my gosh.
Well, I think a great place is italki.
Okay, so I've actually done my own language exchanges on italki before we traveled to Paris last fall.
I hired some language exchange partners on italki to work with.
It was great.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
What else, Michelle?
Do you know of any others?
I hear there's Live Mocha, My Language Exchange.
Yeah.
There's Craigslist.
You could find someone or something called The Mixer or Meetup, or maybe even your local university has a language exchange program.
Yeah, there's lots of places, guys.
And now more and more and more of these platforms are coming online.
So take it on yourself to find your partner, but just guide the exchange in the right way, right?
Take control of what you actually do in that session.
I think that's the key, Michelle.
Awesome.
Okay, Lindsay, this was fun, guys.
Remember to follow the All There's English podcast wherever you are listening four days a week to connection, not perfection.
Thanks for hanging out, Lindsay.
All right, Michelle, I'll talk to you soon.
Have a good one.
All right, bye.
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