Give your Sixth Form students the opportunity to practise Spanish with native speakers their age through guided online exchanges at...

THE TALKAHOLICS 


Your students can surprise you -and surprise themselves- if you give them the opportunity. This is what those who have already participated in The Talkaholics say...

Your priority when you're talking with English speakers is to communicate, not to do it well. As you go along, you'll get it right. However, when you talk to a Spaniard you tell yourself... I have to do it right, because if the objective is just to communicate then I would speak Spanish to him - Enric Cano Ortí.

It is a way to feel more at ease speaking English because maybe if I were to start speaking English with my brother, it would be a bit awkward, but seeing that the Americans speak so naturally and they see it as normal, it gives me confidence - Martín Lopez Ruiz.

We weren't worried about "If I don't know a word..." or "if they don't know a word..." there wasn't pressure at all. That was the best thing, I would say - Michael Morrow.

If I had this before I went to Ireland, the difference would have been night and day. I had a hard time because I didn't understand how things worked. These kind of activities would have helped me a lot to ask questions - Pablo García Lopez.

If I had had this before coming to Spain, it would have been easier for me to talk to people when I arrived - Kyle Byrne.

It's very useful to have a teacher give you topics of conversation during the discussions. The conversation can die out, and we might not know what to talk about. - Eran Mc Sparran.

The English-speaking participants hear me say things that I would say when talking to another Spanish person but that I wouldn't say when talking to them - Alberto Cremades Albert.

Subscribe so they can tell you about it in their videos.


Your students enter a virtual room...


...And they don't wait for me to send them from one breakout room to another, like in Zoom or Google Meets.

Not at all.

Here, they're the ones who cross doors.

They approach a bookshelf and pick up a video.

Or read a note on the table at the back.

And they start talking.

These photos give you an idea...

Subscribe and discover in video how it works from the inside.

"Okay, sounds good but... "What exactly do the students talk about?" "What do they do in these sessions?"


I understand. I also need to see the inner workings of something before saying: "my students are going to love this".

So here is a small sample of the 70 activities that give your students everything they need to converse with confidence and meaning. These are not handbook phrase cards but activities inspired by intercultural communication experts' proposals that cover the specific needs of an exchange, from the initial "what do I say now?" to deeper conversations later on. 


Always with a plan B at hand. 


These activities will turn your students - almost without them noticing - into efficient cultural mediators because through them they learn to read the atmosphere, decipher silences, and catch jokes. 


Speaking another language - as you know - is not just about translating words.


If your students are going to speak, let it be with impact. It's not what they say but how they say it and what they do with it.

Just leave your email here and the whole index will be all yours.

So, when you subscribe you can...


See what those who have already experienced The Talkaholics have to say.

Take a tour of the rooms where we converse.

Peek at the list of topics and activities we use.


Three things. One minute. Straight to your inbox.