Virtual language exchange

My name is Tobias. To improve our English skills, the teacher organized an exchange between my class and students at Queens University in Canada. The conversations I had with Bobby were quite interesting as I learnt a lot about Canada and – their school system. Thus, I could broaden my horizon with this exchange. The sessions were held in our free time but nevertheless, the new experience was very inspiring, and the time went by extremely fast. 

My own experience  

The speaking session were very funny every time. Before the first call nobody knew which person was at the other side of the telephone line. This was a little bit special. After the time it needed to break the ice, we spoke a lot. The first call was about the education system. This was not a very interesting topic, but my partner was very communicative and the time passed quickly. We talked more than 40 minutes in English and learnt a lot about each other. My partner corrected me if I made a mistake and I did the same in the German part. Frequently, my German with the Swiss accent was often hard to understand for my partner.   

A normal speaking session 

A normal speaking session is about one hour. Usually, we spoke the first 30 minutes in English. In almost every session, there was a topic given by our teacher for about 10 minutes. In the remaining time it was our choice to define a topic.   
After the English session, there was also a German session as the Canadian students learn German in school and therefore could profit from this exchange as well. Honestly, I would not want to be in their situation. Learning German is a big effort for them.  

Grades 

Every session needed to be recorded as we got grades. Therefore, we put much more effort in the tasks and improved our English skills. The language expression and the communication style, flow in the evaluation of the teacher. Only for doing the speaking, one gets at least a grade of four.  

– Tobias, BM2  –