Making the Most of Your Sessions - Elementary

Prepare to spend your conversation session speaking. You will need to engage with your conversation partner and act out scenarios in the language. Do the following tasks to prepare yourself:

• You will feel much more confident in your conversation session if you have already practiced the dialogues and vocabulary words in your book out loud a few times. Practicing dialogues by yourself will help you concentrate more on pronunciation and less on what to say next. You will also be more comfortable modifying dialogues with new vocabulary if you have already practiced the original.
• Come having used all the resources that your textbook and syllabus/study guide have given you for that week. Read the assigned section of your book thoroughly to be sure you didn’t miss any details.
• Was there a conversation preparation guide in your syllabus? Listening material from your book?  Go over these thoroughly. Those resources will empower you to speak more confidently when you go to your conversation session.

Come with Questions

Each week, you will find something in your book or your study guide that you have a question about:

• Make sure that you keep track of these questions as they come to you – have a list ready when you come to your session.
• When asking questions, don’t forget to use phrases in the target language. At the beginner level, you will find yourself wanting to switch into English a lot. Resist the urge and always try to use the target language first, even if you know you will have to use English to ask a particular question.

Push Yourself

During the first weeks of your language course, it seems like there is little to say at each conversation session. Filling the whole time with conversation in the target language might be repetitive at first because you are repeating the basics you have learned over and over again at each session. Remember that solidifying these basics is the best practice to set yourself up for comfortable speaking in the future.

Think of what else you can do to engage during the session:

• Look over your vocabulary lists from the sessions you have done. How many of these words have you used in a session? What could you do to insert them into your conversation? For example, if you have been practicing introductions, try introducing some new words into the scenario. Instead of “Hello. My name is Yannick. How are you?” try: “Hello Yannick. Are you a farmer? Do you have a book? Do you like tomatoes?”
• Try to keep adding whatever you can, even if all you do is string many short sentences together. For more specific tips, see the article: Say as Much as You Can.

Be Patient with Yourself

Learning another language is hard! You will find yourself making mistakes over and over again, and it might feel like you are always struggling to understand. Remember that struggling with the language is normal and it doesn’t mean you aren’t doing well – the small steps of progress you make each week will eventually accumulate into meaningful and tangible interactions in the target language.