睿騏英文家教 

One day a friend of mine told me some information about language exchange and she asked me “Do you want to have a language exchange?”

I said, “No, I don’t.”

She looked a bit confused and then asked me “Why? You are learning English, aren’t you? It is a good chance to practice your English without any money and you also can make friends with a foreigner”.

Yes, it sounded like a perfect way to practice my English. Someone will teach me English and I will teach him or her Chinese too. The best thing is we don’t pay any money. In fact, I am not a student anymore. I have to work to pay my bills. If I have a language exchange, I could save my money and learn English.

I might believe that is a good way to learn English a few year ago. But when I started my English lessons with a tutor, I realized how hard it was for an adult to learn English. It’s a good way to have a language exchange if I want to make friend with a foreigner, but not for learning English.

We are not a child who could learn English repeatedly. We lose our patience when we grow up. I don’t want to waste my time. I would love to spend my free time to learn English, but it must be efficient.

If I have a language exchange I won’t know if my future partner is good or not. Does he or she have experience to teach English? Or he or she just could chat with me in English but couldn’t answer my questions? How much time will I need to spend to find a good language exchange partner? Okay, if I find a partner who is good that I think. What can I give to him or her? Do I have experience to teach Chinese? Could I answer his or her questions? Or I just could chat with him or her in Chinese. Neither of these I could do. I believe language exchange should be based on the same condition. If it’s not, it’s not fair to each other.

And there is another thing we have to think. How much time should we spend on language exchange that could make us really progress?