Efficient study with the aid of a language exchange partner

[yuuzar]

Hey guys,

Ive been reading the posts in this forum, and I have been impressed with the wealth of knowledge that I have found here so far. Before I go ahead and ask a specific question, let me start by giving a quick summary of where I am at in my language learning. I have been studying for 5 years, about 10 months back home, and over 4 years in mainland China. At the conversational level, I am OK. I would not say that I am excellent, but I can do alright. My reading is my strongest area (I am somewhere between 1500 - 2500 or so characters), and writing (i.e., on a cellphone or cpu that requires pinyin for input) is behind that.  Listening is better than speaking, and I can also handwrite characters, but that is my weakest area. I have never took a standardized test in a formal setting, but last summer, I took practice levels 1,2,3, & 4, and I blew through the first three, and I think I did OK with 4, but I didn't know how it was rated, so I don't know. I study everyday, mostly focusing on reading and writing. I don't like talking to people, so my speaking suffers. I have all the basic first encounter conversational bits mastered, so I can't just practice with someone on the street. I have to find a hostage at a tea shop or restuarant to talk to.

 

I have used native speakers to help me in the past, but haven't really done so in recent months. I am considering starting that again because I do have native speakers available right now. I just want to make sure that I am using my time wisely to actually improve my language.

 

I would say that my pronunciation is understandable if I pay attention to what I am saying. My tones are OK, unless I forget the tone for the word I am trying to say... My vocabulary is decent, especially for reading. I also struggle if I find too much of a deviation from northern mainland standard putonghua. People have described me as 好乱 when speaking Chinese, so I guess that maybe my patterns of language are not that good, and maybe I stuggle with grammar.

 

Without ever using a formal teacher, or learning setting, I know that my Chinese skillset would be different from those who do have teachers. This means that it may be hard to me to accurately describe my Chinese ability, but I hope I have given a general idea. 

 

Anyhow, thats all.... I am starting to nod off while I am typing this, so I think this means that it is time for me to sleep.

Thanks in advance.

[Demonic_Duck]

Not entirely sure what the question is. It's been a while since I've done a "language exchange" per se, and when I used to do them I wasn't too organised. Here's how I would do it, if I were a more organised and efficient person:

 

1) Choose a specific conversation topic, maybe something from the news, something relevant to your job, your life, interests etc. Allow/encourage your language partner to do the same, or alternatively use the same topic as yours. Of course, this may be deviated from in practice, but that doesn't matter too much.

2) Make an agreement with your language partner that you will both offer constructive feedback on each other's language. Mention how you'd like the feedback to be delivered (e.g. "interrupt me as soon as I make a mistake", or "only correct me after I've finished talking") and what areas you feel you need to work on most (e.g. pronunciation).

3) Have a set duration for your language exchange, e.g. two hours, and divide this exactly in half (or maybe with 10-15 minutes at the beginning for introductions etc.) One half is for practicing Chinese, the other half is for practicing English. During this time, speaking of the other language should be kept to a bare minimum, much like in an ESL/CSL classroom.

4) If it's the first time you meet, do the English half first - this way you can use your own correction techniques as a model, and to show that you're serious about this aspect of the exchange. For times after the first, it might be a good idea to take turns as to which language to do first.

5) If neither of you are in a hurry at the end and want to make it more social, you could always hang around for a bit and simply have a casual bilingual conversation.

[yuuzar]

My apologies.... I see that I forgot to state my question in the body of my post!.... What such carelessness on my part, but to my defense, I was extremely sleepy when I wrote that post last night. I became so focused on describing where I am at in my Chinese progress that I lost sight of my original point... I guess this means that I should not post while sleepy...   Anyhow, in the title, I wrote 'language exchange partner', but I am not really concerned about whether it is an actual language exchange, or someone just teaching me Chinese, but I wrote 'exchange' figuring that more people have experience with language exchanges... Honestly, I am not sure as I rarely encounter other foreigners around here besides the few that I work with.  My question is this:

 

How can I maximize the effectiveness of the help of a native speaker (teacher, language exchange, etc) to improve spoken Chinese?  

[JustinJJ]

I think language exchanges are tricky. I remember studying at Bridge Cafe in Beijing from opening till closing one day studying for an HSK exam.

Over the course of the day I heard maybe half a dozen 'language exchange' groups on the table beside me. During each session they would start with some very broken Chinese for say 3-5 minutes, communication would break down and then they would switch to English for an hour. (Note that each group consisted of a Chinese girl and a foreign male, so there was probably interest beyond just language exchange).

 

The bottom line is that armed with a few thousand words from years of studying English, despite not speaking overly smoothly the Chinese girl would win the language power struggle each time, so I think it's difficult to set up language exchange arrangements unless your language skills are very evenly matched.

 

What I did when I first moved to China was to intially meet Chinese people who either knew no English, or had no interest in learning English, that way there was never any frustrations of being a free English teacher. I started by targeting people who likely had less years of English instruction and after a grounding I would progressively start branching out to speak with other people as well. This way you can reduce the percentage of interaction time you need to spend on English from 50% to 0%.

[Baron]

You can look on conversationexchange.com and find someone with a really low level of English to ensure that you get your time talking. I've met probably 10 or so language exchange partners in the past couple of years and almost all the Chinese ones will just talk at you in Chinese and switch to English all the time, not out of malice, probably more because they think it's helpful or are unused to the awkwardness of dealing with a learner.

 

So as Demonic_duck says, make sure you sort out your ground rules from the beginning. 

 

If you have the spare cash, one to one lessons are pretty good because you don't need to speak English at all, and you can change the teacher or terminate the contract without feeling like an a hole about it. In the end it can be a more efficient way of practicing.

[OneEye]

There's an interesting series of videos here about learning a language from an informant, based on the LAMP method (Language Acquisition Made Practical by Brewster and Brewster). They seem to be aimed at beginners (though I haven't watched all of them yet), but I'm sure you could adapt the principles to learning at a higher level.

 

I've personally found that if you can, having a translator or interpreter as a language exchange partner is tremendously helpful. They tend to understand what you mean when you say "hold me to the same standard you'd hold a native speaker," and they know what it means to really learn a language to a high level. In my experience, many language teachers don't understand this, and their primary goal is to get you communicative (they tend to be trained in the Communicative Method, after all). This can lead to a lot of "已經很好了“ and "沒關係，聽得懂就好," rather than actually correcting your errors, which is a huge pet peeve of mine.

 

Also, if you're unsure about how to say something, rather than trying to say it and asking for correction, try to say it and then ask "how would you say it?" The distinction may seem small, but in reality you'll find that a native speaker will often phrase it in a very different way than you would have, and you'll learn a lot more this way.