How would you use time w/ a native speaker (who speaks your NL fluently)?

[pengin]

I have 1-2hr. a week reserved with a native speaker who knows my NL as well.
I'm looking for suggestions on what I should do during these meetings. I am a beginner.
They do not have experience teaching nor do have any linguistics background, so asking for
explicit grammar instruction would probably not turn out well.

Here are some ideas I've thought of:
- asking for sentence translations from my NL -> to their TL.
Just things that I come across through my week that I realize I would like to know how to
express.

- asking for sentence translations, but w/small changes to intuitively grasp grammar.
e.g., asking how to say "I want to go" and then asking "I do not want to go" (simple ex.)

- asking for help w/pronunciation; correcting my pronunciation.

- I would try to make a list of sentences myself, and have them proof-read it. Ask them if there is
a more "native" way of expressing the same concept. sort've like lang-8

- asking about colloquial words/slang and filler words...
ex. travailler -> bosser in french or saying "este" for ummm in Spanish

What would you do if you had a native speaker of your TL ? This is a supplement to my learning,
and I would continue to use other resources to self-study as well.

[Bakunin]

Welcome to the forum, pengin! I'm working a lot with tutors but since I'm not using textbooks or translation in my studies my approach might not be right for you. Nevertheless, here are a few ideas:

Work with your tutor on picture stories (google "wordless picture books" or look at my list); there are many ways how to use such stories: you can go all passive and just listen to your tutor explain the pictures, you can try to describe the pictures yourself and let your tutor help you, you can record you tutor etc.

Instead of picture stories, you can also use the workbook Action English Pictures to support sessions on all kinds of beginner topics; see my review here

Have a look at the 'activation spiral' technique I've suggested here; maybe you're not yet at that level, but even if not it may give you some ideas ("native speaker version", "vocabulary recording", "conversational islands")

Have a look at this thread on GPA, you'll find the manuals here

[zenmonkey]

Welcome to the forum, pengin! I'm working a lot with tutors but since I'm not using textbooks or translation in my studies my approach might not be right for you. Nevertheless, here are a few ideas:

Work with your tutor on picture stories (google "wordless picture books" or look at my list); there are many ways how to use such stories: you can go all passive and just listen to your tutor explain the pictures, you can try to describe the pictures yourself and let your tutor help you, you can record you tutor etc.

Instead of picture stories, you can also use the workbook Action English Pictures to support sessions on all kinds of beginner topics; see my review here

Have a look at the 'activation spiral' technique I've suggested here; maybe you're not yet at that level, but even if not it may give you some ideas ("native speaker version", "vocabulary recording", "conversational islands")

Have a look at this thread on GPA, you'll find the manuals here

Those are beautiful, what a great idea.

[Ruan]

I have 1-2hr. a week reserved with a native speaker who knows my NL as well.
(...)
What would you do if you had a native speaker of your TL ? This is a supplement to my learning,
and I would continue to use other resources to self-study as well.

Accent reduction and proofreading are incredibly productive when you're working with a TL native who also speaks your NL, because he knows where your mistakes are coming from. I guess it's still not the right time to do accent reduction, as you're a beginner, but that would be definitely something to work on as you progress towards the more advanced stages.

My teacher would always tell me things like "You're thinking in Portuguese. There's no VSO in English, it's always SVO.". Or even "You're borrowing this /o/ sound in /o/ther from Portuguese. This doesn't exist in English.". So it's way better than working with a teacher who doesn't speak your NL.

[Cavesa]

Hmm, the discussion obviously moved here from the old htlal. I guess I won't even participate there anymore at all as it is mostly dead.

Speak, speak, speak, get rid of the fear of making mistakes. Just get the flow going, practice, learn to use all that you've learnt so far to 100%

I know this is hard for a beginner. But you can still start from the topics you've been learning (things like a town, description of people,your hobbies, whatever has your course been serving you recently)

Asking questions is a good thing, however, I suggest you prepared them well. For example, asking out the blue: "What are soome good slang words in your language?" is not a good idea (speaking of experience). How the hell are they gonna remember good ones on the spot and differenciate fast between the common ones you should learn and weird ones only a few people use (or ones absolutely risky to use for a foreigner not that advanced in the language and culture)?

A better question is: "I've read/found online these slang words, are they common?" or "In English, we've got a lot of everyday slangwords related to subject x, like ...., are there some commonly used words like that in Arabic?" etc.

Grammar explanations, that is a waste of time in such a setting, in my opinion. Unless you've got questions about specific examples, differences between various examples regarding a confusing issue and so on. Not only you are not wasting your time this way, asking for things you could read in your coursebook, but a native may have easier time giving context and explanation for the sentences than explaining rules he never had to learn this way.

Basically, the better questions you ask, the better answers you'll get in my opinion.

Now, I've fully moved to the new htlal.

[Iversen]

I just spent some time with a group of Italians discussing the deployment of open standard software - not my usual fare in that language, but a subject which interested both them and me. The point is that for me meetings with native speakers should be used on discussing the same kind of things I would be discussing with a speaker of my own language, and apart from the entertainment value I also expect to get more fluent from the experience. But I wouldn't expect to learn grammar, words or expressions from such meetings - I learn such things much more efficiently using sources which I can make stop, repeat and shut down at will. Like a book or a podcast. When using such sources I have time to think about each item and to write things down. If I don't have those possibilities it is a pure fluke if I remember anything - although I did notice that the Italians said "file" with an Italian 'i', not the English diphtong. But I was more interested in how their customers reacted to new software than in how they pronounced some word - if I ask about a word in such a situation it is only to get the conversation going again after some hesitation from my side .

A slightly different question would be what I would do if I had a fully qualified teacher at my disposal who ALSO was a native speaker (without any superfluous and disturbing co-students within earshot). Well, I have not tried that since I went to the university, but I think I would get some details of pronunciation polished, and I would ask questions which had baffled me during my personal studies. Or maybe ask for lots of slight variations on some pattern which I wanted to explore. And after each lesson the person in question would leave tottering with fatigue.