It is a learning partnership: it only works well if both partners benefit equally. For this reason, you should spend half of the time helping your partner communicate in your native language. Then your partner speaks or writes in his native language, and you learn from him. He can inform you of current events in his country, can correct your mistakes and can give you various helpful tips.

It is a very rich learning experience and a good way learn about other cultures and lifestyles.

What can you learn from each other?

First and foremost, you learn to understand the foreign language better and to express yourself more easily in it - and this in an authentic oral or written context.

You and your tandem partner each possess extensive knowledge of your own country and profession, and perhaps you also have similar interests. When you talk about these things in both languages, you are not only expanding your foreign language skills and knowledge.

Some of the general objectives you can set up with your partner are refreshing language skills which were previously acquired, practically applying skills being learned in a present language course or keeping up the language expanding your knowledge. You can, however, also concentrate on particular linguistic skills and practise these with the help of your partner, with a view to:

• improving comprehension when others speak or write the foreign language
• learning to speak better yourself
• expressing yourself better in writing
• improving your translation skills

You determine what you want to learn, when you learn and how much. Discuss your learning objectives with your tandem partner and let him know how he can help you achieve them. Your partner will probably be following different learning objectives and will ask you to in turn help him.

Who is Tandem suitable for?

Tandem is suitable for anyone who is presently learning a language or who wishes to brush up on old skills. Basic knowledge of the foreign language is generally sufficient, especially if you are communicating with your Tandem partner in writing.

Even if your partner may be more proficient in the foreign language that you are, this does not present a problem. You are better at your native language than he is, so he can also learn a great deal from you. An important part of tandem learning is that each individual learner can follow his learning objectives at his own level of proficiency and can, in turn, help his partner.

How can you work together?

If you live in the same city as your partner, you can meet regularly. If this is not the case, you and your partner can use e-mail, telephone, video conferencing, letters or instant messaging. Naturally, the media you use need to fit with your learning objectives: if you wish to improve your oral skills (listening comprehension and speaking), telephoning and video conferencing are particularly well suited.

Selection of media also influences the way you work together: with written media, you have enough time to read and respond to your partner's texts with the help of a dictionary and learning materials; the texts remain available later for continued work. (Corrections, however, take more time than if done orally.) With oral media such as telephone or video conferencing, you have to react more quickly, but your tandem partner can help you immediately if you do not understand or cannot express something. (Repeated mistakes in pronunciation or in sentence structure can be relearned if your partner continually corrects you.)

How can I find an tandem partner?

There are many websites which help you find a tandem partner, but we have included only the ones that our students have found useful.

• eTandem Project You will have to fill a form and wait one or two weeks to receive the contact information of a matching partner.
• Erste Nachhilfe If you live in a German speaking country, you should try this site because you find a partner very quickly and easily.
• Facebook There are many groups about people interested in learning a foreign language through the tandem method. Although it is a social network site, one of our students meet his girlfriend using Facebook.

More Information

Most of the tips found in this page were extracted from eTandem Project. There you will find advice on planning your tandem work and improving your learning process.

If you're serious . . .