Two students, two languages, one tandem

They would probably never have met: Ramona Sachse, a special education student from Oldenburg, and Jing Li, a PhD student in Electronic Systems from China. They got to know each other through a language tandem. Now they teach each other their mother tongue.

They became aware of the language tandem programme through the Language Centre's offer. Coordinator Daniela Rommel arranges language tandems every semester and supports the students in this unconventional way of learning a language. The special thing about it is that everyone sets their own learning goals and receives advice from their language partner. This means that Ramona and Li are both language students and teachers at the same time.

"The great advantage of a language tandem is that you have a personal language coach at your side. You can ask questions at any time and you can set the pace yourself," explains Rommel. For students, it is an additional motivation to test and improve their language skills with a native speaker.

Li is doing his semester abroad in Oldenburg. In addition to the language tandem, he is also attending a German course. "The combination of course and tandem is a great help for me," he says. He can practise what he has learnt on the course in conversation with Sachse.

They do this every week, every Friday. Then it's an hour of German lessons for Li, followed by an hour of Chinese for Ramona. Together they attend language workshops, the Language Centre's learning advice service and keep a blog in which they document their learning successes. This is compulsory so that they can gain credit points for the language tandem.

As the Chinese language course was already fully booked this semester, Ramona is happy that she has an alternative way to expand her language skills with the language tandem. However, you have to allow enough time for self-study. A language tandem is time-consuming. It's easy to underestimate that.

"Li helps me a lot, especially when learning pronunciation," explains Ramona. After all, nothing is as difficult to learn as the correct pronunciation in Chinese. "When he says at the end of the lesson that it really sounds Chinese to me, it's the biggest compliment for me!"