Tips for speaking practice with mentor

Some tips for speaking practice with the language mentor:

1. Establish clear goals.
I discuss my language learning goals with my mentor and set specific objectives for my speaking practice sessions at the beginning of my phone calls. The objectives in my ISP (including improving pronunciation, fluency, or vocabulary, etc.) guide my practice and make my communication with the mentor more effective.

2. Engage in regular conversation.
An advantage of having a friend as a language mentor is I am very willing to engage in conversations with her as much as possible. One goal in my ISP is to talk about everyday topics more fluently. We can share very small but interesting things in everyday life and discuss how to express them in Yoruba.

3. Ask for feedback.

My language mentor is always willing to give me constructive feedback, which helps me identify my strengths and weaknesses, allowing me to target specific areas for improvement.

4. Record and review.

With my mentor’s permission, I record our speaking sessions. I will listen to the recordings and analyze my performance later. This self-evaluation will help me track my progress and identify areas for further development.

5. Embrace mistakes and learn from them.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes while speaking! Mistakes are a natural part of the learning process. Embrace them as learning opportunities. One of the objectives written in my ISP is to try to use various and complex sentence structures. It is still a challenge for me and it’s easy to make mistakes in conversations when I try to make long sentences. But consistent practice and regular interaction with my language mentor greatly enhance my abilities in this part.