Communication media for eTandem
How can you work together?

1. General Information

For your eTandem work, you and your partner can use any communication media to which you have access: e-mail, telephone, video conferencing, fax, letters, instant messaging, SMS, etc.

Matching your learning objectives

Naturally, the media you use need to fit with your learning objectives: if you wish to improve your oral skills (listening comprehension and speaking), telephoning and video conferencing are particularly well suited.

Differences

Selection of media also influences the way you work together:

With written media such as e-mail, fax or letters, you have enough time to read and respond to your partner's texts with the help of a dictionary and learning materials; the texts remain available later for continued work. (Corrections, however, take more time than if done orally.)

With oral media such as telephone or video conferencing, you have to react more quickly, but your eTandem partner can help you immediately if you do not understand or cannot express something. (Repeated mistakes in pronunciation or in sentence structure can be relearned if your partner continually corrects you.)

Combination of media

In many cases, combining various media with each other makes sense. Many eTandem partners, for example, work together primarily by e-mail but make their corrections by telephone: this is quicker and allows for quick questions and more extensive explanations.