There is a student organized group providing a Greater University Tutoring Service (GUTS) at University of Wisconsin. GUTS is a service for students who are learning languages other than English. Students learning foreign languages can apply to be a tutor to teach others his or her native language, or apply to be a tutee to learn a new language form a tutor.
For example, I am a native Chinese speaker, and I am now learning both English and Japanese. I applied to be a tutor to teach another student Chinese. And I also applied to learn Japanese from others. However, I can’t apply for learning English in this program.
This is a student community similar to Lang-8 in that language learners benefit each other. But the GUTS focus more on oral communications, i.e. listening and speaking, while Lang-8 focus more on written communication.
Now, they’ve matched me a tutee named Molly who is learning Chinese, but we haven’t met yet. I hope we enjoy the teaching and learning experience this semester.
However, there are only about 15 Japanese students on campus, and only a few people do volunteer work at GUTS. Unfortunately, I won’t get a tutor because they all already have tutees.
However, I was told that there is a Japanese student association and they will be having a spring kickoff event this Saturday and that students from other countries are also welcome to attend. I am planning to attend and meet some Japanese friends. It would be great if I had more chances to use Japanese to express myself, but I don’t know whether they have free time to tutor me.
Even worse, I don’t know whether or not they are willing to make a Chinese friend like me. Nevertheless, but I think I should at least try. So, I need to practice greeting phrases several times before the spring kickoff.