TSNY Conversation Partners

Our conversation partners are fluent speakers of French and Spanish. They provide the perfect opportunity for students who want to improve their listening and speaking skills, or gain a better understanding of how their language is used in real life. Elementary school students often meet with a partner to practice their language skills and better understand life in other countries. Adventurous high schoolers, meanwhile, practice with our conversation partners in advance of summer programs, or semesters or gap years spent abroad. Prices vary by the speaker’s country of residence and experience level. To speak with a team member about working with a conversation partner, please get in touch with us by phone or email, schedule a free consultation, or click Enroll Today below.

SPeakers Who Know their Stuff

Our conversation partners are fluent speakers of their languages. They are either native speakers, or speakers who live or have spent at least five years in the country that speaks their foreign language. Partners couple their fluency with a deep understanding of their language’s vocabulary and grammar, in order to help students build knowledge they can use. As fluent speakers, our partners have an understanding of how Spanish and French are spoken in real life contexts. They help students avoid sounding like textbooks, and enable them to gain a new level of proficiency. This has benefits in real life and in the classroom, whether they are doing a listening activity in school, giving an oral presentation, preparing for an AP Exam, or getting ready to travel.

Rigorous Training, Relaxed Environments

We provide our partners with our full array of training materials so they become familiar with our pedagogical approaches, and our company policies. Importantly, however, these partners are not tutors per se. Instead, they offer an opportunity for students to practice their listening and speaking skills in an environment with the lower stakes than that of the classroom. Homework can often feel like a chore; academic approaches to learning a foreign language can often dampen a student’s passion for that language. Working with a partner allows them to use their language as it should be used—to talk about the things they care about! Students and partners can talk about whatever the student would like, in the process building listening and speaking skills that will help students in the classroom and beyond.

A Gateway to ANother Culture

While our partners help students improve their listening and speaking skills, they also give students a chance to learn more about life in other countries. Students who work with conversation partners gain new insight into their lives as they learn about the lives of others. Some students talk to their partners about perceptions of the U.S. in other countries. Others talk to their partners about interests like sports, fashion, politics, and more. By working with a conversation partner, students build a deeper, longer lasting understanding of their language. Composition, listening, and speaking all become easier. More importantly, students are more likely to retain their skills in their foreign language when they have spent time actively using that language to communicate with others.