So it is February, usually that time when have to start assessing the plausibility of your New Year's Resolutions.
I am trying to think through how to make a language exchange more effective and I would greatly appreciate what has worked for you all.
Time: Usually my biggest issue, just because I don't have a steady schedule for what I do. Some days I may be in the office for 12 hours, other days I may be running from meeting to meeting or conference call. So it is tough to consistently make available a part of my week to practice, let alone making sure I have the energy and don't just use that block for sleep or something less labor intensive.
Language Level: I would say there is a certain level of knowledge in your target language for which if you are under, compounds the amount of work the other person will do to understand what you are asking them. I would say I am at that level in Mandarin and am quickly trying to get out of that space, but it is a space that I will have to navigate until I truly feel comfortable that I am not wasting someone's time.
Content: Obviously when most people trying to start a language exchange, the conversations had remain low level, about things like daily life and the mundane. But for me, the knowledge I want to obtain is a bit more technical and I want to get that across. I want more assistance translating certain ideas than say learning small talk. I also want to create opportunities to practice my understanding with that new knowledge (role play for example) and that might not be something everyone feels comfortable with.
So I try to make it a habit, when I am editing someone's entry, to clear note where I am changing their language. This could be either by removing words, which I do using the strikethrough feature, and adding ones that I use a different colored font for. But the usefulness of all this depends on the level of the person writing the entry in the first place. For some, my comments are useful in getting a feel of how a native speaker would say or write something. For someone with less proficiency, they may know how to write it but are left to their own devices to figure out the grammatical nuances of why what they wrote originally was wrong.
So I ask you all, what is most helpful to you receiving useful feedback and how would you give it?
