Language Exchange Day 1

Holy crap! Yesterday was huge and I'm still overwhelmed.

For a year and a half, I've wanted to start a language exchange centre so that two people could sit down across a table and teach each other languages. It's such an obvious and enjoyable solution to "I know the rules but I can't have a conversation," but no one does it. 

Well, yesterday, with about 40 Ecuadorians and exchange students, we began. Day 1 was all about welcoming, relaxing, and having fun, so here's what we did:

• Bilingual sentence charades; pick and card and act out the phrase until someone guesses it in English or Spanish (e.g. "Can I ride your horse?"/"Puedo montar a su caballo?"). Then make the audience say both. Good laughs here.
• "Am I a polar bear?"; link arms with a partner and ask other pairs yes/no questions to about the animal picture on your back until you figure it out (see pictures).
• Photo scavenger hunt; teams of 4-5 were formed, and then my assistant Libby and I (yep--I have an assistant) read off 15 items in Spanish and 15 in English, including "a German on one foot," "shaking hands with a tourist," and "a blue-footed booby." They had 30 minutes, and I am still in awe of the first team back, who got 29 items.

The idea with all of these was not to teach language, but to show them that they could teach each other, even total beginners.

Finally, at the end of the afternoon, we gave people their new partners. Imagine a room of blind dates--really nervous, really excited people doing their best to have a conversation. That was my favourite part. Now they're responsible to their partners, which means Partner A has to call Partner B if he can't meet. On Sundays they're invited to facilitated exchange sessions with me and Libby, basically to teach them how to teach, and the rest of the week they can meet on their own.

Phew. 

Who knows how big this will get. Like I said, I'm still overwhelmed. There are already things I would do differently, and I'm bound to make a million mistakes, but I keep reminding myself that this is an experiment. Me and Darwin, we're all about evolution.

What do you think? Would you ever do a language exchange?