By He Wu

IT was in Germany that I met language tandem for the first time. In 2008, I went to Humboldt University of Berlin as a visiting scholar. To learn German, I got to know, through the university’s Language Tandem service, a local college student, and we formed a pair of language partners, reciprocally learning a foreign language from a native speaker. And since then, I’ve become a personal cultural messenger, working through language tandem-based foreign language learning and mother language teaching.

Language tandem – two people from different countries getting into a pair and learning the foreign language from each other – is an effective and efficient way to learn a foreign language. I’ve long transplanted this way from German learning to English learning, which has made up a drawback in my English learning at college, when I had little or no direct contact with native speakers of the target language. In my present English teachings, I’ve also been recommending this kind of language practice, encouraging students to make full use of the native-speaker resources on campus and hoping for a better way for them to learn a target language. 

So far, I’ve cooperated with at least five language partners, including Julia from Germany, Nico from the UK, Edward and Kevin from the US, and Lisa from Cape Verde. Through language exchange, we not only learn each other’s language, but we also learn about the country, people, and culture related to the language. With constant and friendly contact, we have gradually become ambassadors representing different cultures, contributing to a better understanding between different nations.

Then how does a language tandem usually work? Here is a sample of a Chinese-English exchange. Every semester, I and my language partner, usually a foreign teacher with our university, will set a common free time according to our teaching schedules, meet once weekly, and chat for two hours every time. 

The first hour would be totally for English and the second for Chinese, so that each of us has one hour of absolute target-language atmosphere. For the first hour, usually we would walk and talk on the campus or outside of it, chatting about anything popping into our sight or mind, totally in English. And then we would return to the office and shift to a Chinese chat with a cup of tea. As for topics, what we chat about are either some interesting subjects we collected in advance or, more likely, those that pop out temporarily aroused by the talked-about topics. 

At the English time, the foreign teacher would be a precious source for my English language input and a valuable audience and respondent to my English speaking. At the Chinese time, I would function in the same role as the foreign teacher: a precious Chinese language source and a valuable audience and respondent. In this way, both of us could get a good teacher of the target language without payment, learn from each other the freshest and most practical target language, learn about different cultures, and have our own cultures better understood by others. 

The only cost is the hour we spend teaching the partner our own language, which can actually give us a sense of satisfaction because of the contributions we make to the cultural exchange.

The experience with my first language partner, the German girl Julia, is worth a special mention. During my 2008 winter vacation, I spent a couple days visiting Julia’s hometown, Stuttgart, to learn about Germany outside of its capital, Berlin. It happened to be Christmas Day, so I could observe how the local people celebrate their most important festival, which is part of my interest as a foreign language learner and teacher. I found Julia’s mom to be the only Christian in their family, with both Julia and her father being religion-free. Nevertheless, that night, Julia and her dad took the guest to watch the ceremony at the church while the mom stayed at home preparing dinner for the family. Such a mom-is-the-busiest scene is so similar to Chinese families. With language exchange and deeper contacts, we could find that there actually exist many similarities between Eastern and Western cultures, likely because, after all, we all belong to human cultures. Julia has so far visited China two times, and she once excitedly learned to wrap jiaozi at my home. She stayed in China every time, but I believe she must have gained a good understanding of China and Chinese people through our language exchanges and family visits.

Chongqing, the city I live in, as an important hub for China’s western transportation system, has seen a great increase in the city’s level of internationalisation and has become more prestigious internationally. Reportedly, Chongqing has signed more than 60 international sister cities and has more than 100 more to sign. It is accepting more and more students, tourists, and workers from abroad, and the number of local people travelling abroad keeps rising every year, which makes foreign language learning prevalent and popular in Chongqing.

Many of my friends have claimed that they want to go back to college to learn English. But I know few people really have the chance to learn English back on campus. My suggestion to them is to start learning just locally. You can read some favourite English books at home, hear some English radio programmes on the way to and from work, talk regularly with a fixed language partner, and answer some English emails or text messages. In such ways, you can have more flexible time for English learning and more practical exercise. Start the learning locally, and you can find classrooms available wherever you are. 

To sum up, if you do some easy, interesting English readings, if you befriend some native speakers of the language, and if you practise using it, then you can learn the language more easily and be a good cultural messenger at the same time.

Wu is a Professor of English language and literature, Southwest University, China.