Guide to managing the language partner thing

[Pengyou]

I have done a search on this site on "language partners" and got too many hits to look through. Does someone know of a single webpage or posting that has list of ways to manage the language partner thing or a comprehensive guidebook to help? My experiences have not been very good.

[snarfer]

Here is a how-to:

http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/HowTo.asp

I believe that this how-to expresses the most common idea of language exchange, aka the Cornier Method. However, my personal feeling is that the Cornier method doesn't work very well in China. Most of the time the two parties are at vastly different levels of language acquisition, so at least one of the parties will be dissatisfied with the results. That is, the conversation will end up being almost entirely in one or the other language, or will break down entirely. I think that a lot of the time this may be due to the fact that in conversation, especially small talk, people generally are more concerned with being heard than with listening to what the other person has to say.

However, I think that language exchange can work much better if the two parties agree instead to concentrate entirely on listening, and speak only their first languages the whole time. In other words, let's be truthful here, nobody wants to listen to bad Chinese or bad English unless they're getting paid for it. Also, I think that disposing of the dictionary is a good idea. Using gestures and pictures is much more interesting, and keeps the conversation flowing. Some of the suggested lesson plans on the previously mentioned site could be useful.

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who actually tries my idea. Personally, the last time I was in China it was during the Chinese New Year and I couldn't find anyone to do language exchange with, much less agree not to speak any English.

Hopefully this post will ignite a firestorm of disagreement.

[chiahuei]

well first disagreement coming right up!

i'm interested in a language exchange so that i can speak more mandarin than i would in class (which in my current class is pretty limited) and have him/her correct my pronounciation and grammar and build up my vocabulary. i believe the chinese partner would also want to practise speaking english because most of the time they do well in reading and writing but are unable to speak fluently (that is the feedback i get from my exchange partners). so both parties would certainly benefit from being forced to speak the language they are trying to learn. i understand hokkien (a chinese dialect) quite well but i can't speak at all which doesn't help in communicating with my grandma!!! i'm not sure if anyone would have a language exchange with the sole purpose of trying to improve their listening - there's the tv and radio for that.