Tandem language learning is a learning activity in which foreign language learners are paired with learners of their native language as a foreign language and interact with each other in an environment where their native and target languages are used in a language exchange situation. It provides learning opportunities not only for language skills but also for cultural knowledge. In Europe, tandem language learning has long been conducted face-to-face for immigrants, but with the development of ICT, asynchronous communication using email, text messages, SNS posts, etc., and synchronous communication using video chat, etc., have been introduced as opportunities for people in distant locations to learn an authentic language and culture directly from a native speaker. Tandem learning through electronic tools has become known as “eTandem.”
An opportunity to speak English via video chat may remind many people of “online English conversation,” in which students learn to speak English through video chats with native English-speaking teachers. Whereas “online English conversation” involves a teacher-student relationship, eTendem provides an opportunity to interact with learners of the same age on an equal footing, freely choosing topics of mutual interest in their daily lives.
The characteristics of eTandem are reciprocity, autonomy, and authenticity. By pairing foreign language learners in a language exchange situation between their native and target languages, a relationship is established in which they can mutually benefit from each other’s language use and provide each other with information about their native culture, fostering reciprocity. By meeting other learners of the same age, rather than in a traditional teacher-student relationship, they can cooperate and decide which topics to choose and how much of each other’s language to use, thereby fostering autonomy. In addition, by interacting with other learners of the same age on topics of their interest, they are exposed to information and language that they wish to be exposed to in a genuine sense and can enjoy the authentic information and language that native speakers use in the society, which ensure the participants of authenticity for the communication.
When considering international exchange activities in school foreign language education, it is often assumed that students will interact with native speakers of the target language. In such cases, teachers tend not to consider the benefits to the exchange partners. However, seeking language learners as exchange partners with native speakers of the target language in eTandem can be seen as much fun for the exchange partners as well since they can interact with peers of the same age group who speak the target language as their native language. This perspective of reciprocity should be most emphasized when planning international exchange activities.
When engaging in international exchange activities via eTandem for foreign learners as part of their school education, care should be taken to minimize teacher intervention on the video chat day and ensure the learners’ autonomy. If the teachers force the participants to speak the language they are learning or specify the topic and put their students in a situation where students cannot discuss topics that are authentic to them, that is, they want to know and talk about from their interests, the international exchange, which should be fun and encourage intellectual curiosity, will become an obligation for the students.