Language exchanges are an excellent way of developing your English skills in the UK, at the same time you will help others to learn your language, make new friends and discover more about each other’s cultures.

In the UK you will find that you can participate in language exchanges through your local college, university or English school in a programme that puts you into a pair with an English speaker, either outside of class or within a controlled classroom environment, allowing you to practice each other’s language.

They work by putting you in an informal relaxed classroom environment with native speakers who wish to learn your language. The class is divided into 2 parts; one part is spent talking with each other in your native tongue and the other half in theirs.

But this is not just a random chat about whatever happens to enter into your head at the time. A qualified instructor should design the class so that you cover specific topics within structured lesson plans, making sure that you really develop your language skills.

Teaching Style

The emphasis is placed on helping you to improve in the areas of vocabulary, pronunciation and listening comprehension.

But what makes language exchanges so helpful is that, unlike a traditional language class, you will learn to communicate within the ‘conversation culture’, helping you to learn English expressions and slang words as-well as more about the culture and, most importantly, about the British sense of humour that acts as a base around which many daily conversations are held in the UK.

This is a really helpful way of improving your English if you are planning to work here in the UK, as having such an insight into British culture will really help in business where effective communication can be the difference between success and failure.

You will also find that helping a native English speaker to learn your language will actually help you to learn English; because it will help you understand how a native English speaker thinks and structures sentences during a conversation. So even when your half of the lesson feels like it’s over and you are no longer allowed to practice English, you will still actually be learning.

The structured format of the lessons is very important because you will be encouraged to talk about a wide variety of things, some of which you may normally feel a bit shy about trying to bring up outside of class! You will also have a chance to talk about your specific hobbies and interests, which will allow you to develop confidence in being able to talk about the things that really interest you.

Benefits

Of course you might think that as you are coming to the UK there is no real need to get involved in a language exchange because you are going to be surrounded by native speakers every day. This is true, but the benefit of language exchange is that you are guaranteed to have an enjoyable conversation with a patient and attentive listener, whereas outside you might find that people talk too quickly and are not able to empathise with the difficulties that a non-native speaker faces.

Overall these classes are designed to be fun and relaxed, so you are unlikely to be assessed in anyway, but you should find that spending just 1 hour a week in a language exchange will see your understanding of both English and the local culture improve immeasurably.

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USEFUL WORDS

native speaker = a person who speaks a language as their first language and has not learned it as a foreign language
participate in = to take part or become involved in an activity
work in a pair with someone = to work together with one other person
place emphasis on = to give special importance to something
have an insight into something = the ability to see and understand something
slang = very informal words and expressions which are more common in spoken language

ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Binomials

These are pairs of nouns joined by another word, where the order is always the same, forming a well-known expression:

There are cafes here and there = scattered around
We’ve had meetings on and off = occasionally
I’ve been running back and forth / to and fro all day = to and from somewhere
He’s unemployed and down and out again = without a home or money
She’s better now and up and about again = going out
She ran up and down the street = in both directions
You’ve got your sweater on back to front = the wrong way
He won’t help her, she’ll have to sink or swim = survive or fail
Slowly but surely my English is improving = gradually
She didn’t want to be just friends – it had to be all or nothing = everything or nothing
Well I’m sorry that’s all I can offer you, take it or leave it = decide yes or no
It’s about the same distance as from here to London, give or take a few miles = more or less