GeeklyHub Reviews 6 Tips How to Communicate With the Foreign Students to Learn
Talking to the exchange students you are learning along with or turning to someone abroad who shares your academic interests and hobbies is not only a learning experience but also a great cultural journey! For example, our international GeeklyHub team is a great mixture of various customs and different backgrounds, which helps us to stay unbiased and focused on only the best things as we learn and share. Regardless if you are an exchange student yourself or someone trying to communicate with a foreigner, there are some simple tips that will help you to learn the most as you discover something new.
1. Speak At A Reasonable Volume And Keep Your Tone Clear
As you want to learn while talking to a foreigner, you should always ensure that you are heard. Regardless if you are talking in person or do so online, remember that your sentences must be short and always on-point. Our GeeklyHub experts recommend implementing the tone. While it is quite important in English, one cannot go without it in Chinese or Swedish, as an example. If you are not using English and try to speak a foreign language, consider this aspect and ask the foreigner to explain various tonal aspects!
2. Use Simple English Without Any Filler Words Or Phrases
If we are dealing with English, one must remember that any complex phrases or filler words will bring in confusion and will make the foreigner helpless. Since it is the case with any language, you will eventually learn about slang, yet if you want to be understood clearly, keep your language clear. If you are talking to a group of foreign students, remember to make it clear that you are talking to more than one person if it is meant for a group. Likewise, if you are turning to a single individual as you talk, always make it clear to avoid confusion.
3. Wait For The Foreigner To Finish Talking
It is an important aspect of learning while talking, which is often ignored. Learn to avoid interrupting your partner as you communicate and wait until the sentence has been finished. It helps to understand what thoughts and ideas are being meant. Our GeeklyHub team believes that these simple rules of communicational ethics represent one of the most important factors of successful learning. If we take an example of the colloquial Spanish language, the speed of pronunciation will take you by storm! It makes it evident that you have to keep up with the timing as you learn!
4. Implement video conferencing to let the person see your mouth
If you have no opportunity to communicate with a foreign student in person, do your best to use video conferencing instead of “audio-only” mode. It is important because you have to let the person see your mouth and gestures, which helps to express ideas and learn in a more efficient way. This visual aspect is also important in terms of mental perception of things as “yes” is not always a confirmation, as they say!
5. Learn How To Listen
The true art of communicating with a foreign student to learn is being able to listen. It does not matter if you are there to teach or to learn, it will always work both ways. You may simply discuss your favorite movie or talk about academic subjects, yet being able to hear what the foreigner says is one of the most important aspects of learning because you will pay attention to how the sentences are composed or what mistakes must be corrected in terms of grammar and style as you help your foreign friend.
6. Address Every Frustration
Communicating with foreign students can easily get frustrating, especially if your language skills are not that good or one of you is feeling nervous about making a mistake. Nevertheless, you should do your best to keep the environment relaxed and calm by addressing every frustration that may come up. Have a laugh together, provide funny examples, jokes, share your knowledge about the foreign country in question, and do not forget about the socio-cultural aspect of communication as you talk.
Learn The Language as You Communicate
Even if you do not know any foreign students, living in a remote village, you do not have to despair because there are amazing free applications that will help you to learn and communicate at the same time. Our GeeklyHub team recommends a great free app called HelloTalk, which combines video conferencing, audio, and simple text as you talk to foreigners from over 103 countries. What makes it great is that it is an educational community where you can meet foreign students based on academic subject or land. Give it a try and see how much it enhances your life!
