Language learning programs are great for getting your dose of daily lessons. Most of the time, though, they aren’t all that great for practice. That part’s still best done interacting with other speakers.
One of the best ways to get regular practice is to join (or form) a language group in your area. That way, you can practice what you’ve learned individually during meetings, giving everyone a low-pressure way to use new skills they’ve picked up.
If you want to make sure meetings are spent doing actual practice, though, it pays to make programs that can spur them. Without it, meetings could easily devolve into casual hanging-out sessions that leave everyone no closer to their fluency goals. Here are some ways you can structure meetings to do that:
- Create role-play scenarios. Here, you make people enact common scenarios where they will need to use the language. For instance, you can have one person act as a Spanish-speaking waiter, serving a table of four.
- Create content in groups. You can have groups design promotional materials in the target language, like posters and billboards. Even if they talk in their native tongue the entire time, they’ll still have to access their knowledge banks to come up with the stuff to write on the materials.
- Book readings. Hold a book reading, where the group reads a novel written in the foreign language. This will allow the group to practice their reading and pronunciation skills, maybe even their listening skills.
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