What is Tandem Language Exchange

An important aspect of the Web 2.0 phenomenon is the use of Web-embedded and integrated non-browser Internet applications to facilitate community-building and direct user participation and interaction. Social Networking Services, online noticeboards, chat rooms, and other interactive environments enable students to engage directly with native speakers of their target languages. As a way of bringing language learners together, Web 2.0 technologies promise an enormous transformation in language learning. With regard to voice communications specifically, synchronous, peer-to-peer voice-over-IP (P2P VoIP) tools such as Skype, GoogleTalk, and others are an example of a new channel of online interaction that is likely to play an increasingly important role in online community-building and language learning. This chapter analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of the Skype service as a tool for tandem language learning. It presents a variety of ways in which Skype’s strengths can be enhanced and its weaknesses overcome by incorporating the exchange into a wider Web 2.0 environment, based on insights we have gained over the course of an ongoing study. In particular, the importance of a task-based approach informed by the principles of tandem learning is emphasized. Preliminary qualitative results are reported of two years of ongoing Skype-based tandem exchanges between Japanese students of English at Tsuda College, Tokyo, and American students of Japanese at San Diego State University. Finally, a prototype is presented for a new dedicated Web 2.0 environment designed to optimize the Skype tandem learning experience and to facilitate further research in the field.