Who can participate?
Everybody from the age of 14 years
What do we expect from you?
- You should be open-minded and respect other people
- You should be interested in intercultural exchange
- You should be willing to learn a new foreign language or improve your already existent foreign language skills
- You should be willing to invest at least 2 hours a week
What are your advantages?
Learning a language in tandem:
- is a great complement to a regular language learning course. You have the chance to extend your language skills and put them into practice
- gives you an opportunity to learn more about the culture of your tandem partner
- helps you to get in touch with new people
- means informal learning. It is not about speaking a foreign language impeccable, but to loose fear to speak. You yourself decide on topics and pace of your learning process
- offers you an opportunity to learn from each other and with each other. Every participant is teacher and student at the same time. Tandem partners support each other along this way and learning together is just fun!
How does learning in tandem work?
- Together with your tandem partner you decide how often and where you are going to meet each other (possible meeting points could be for example, a quiet coffee bar, a library, a youth centre etc.). You shape the complete learning process yourself!
- You meet regularly and make sure that the time spent together is split fairly (e.g. the first hour you dedicate to one language and the second hour to another language)
- In addition, we offer individual counselling and mentoring for learning where together we can evaluate your learning progress and find ways to overcome difficulties that may arise
- Finally, there are needs-based trainings as well as exchange meetings for all tandems. Participation is free of charge for you!
What do I have to do to apply for the program?
- Please fill in this form and send it by mail to tandem(at)DRK-westfalen(dot)de or by fax to 0251 9739-4-174. You can find our privacy policy here.
- After, you receive an invitation to the first interview with the project coordinator. Within the scope of this interview, we will discuss among other things your learning targets and wishes. Your data will be collected and stored at the participant pool. As soon as we found a match for you (there is another person in this pool who speaks your "target" language and wants to learn your mother tongue), we will contact you and invite both participants to the second interview
- On the second interview you meet your tandem partner and have a chance to clear up remaining questions. Then you can start immediately!
