Overview

Your participation as a Language Partner in the Directed Independent Language Study program is vital to the success of the program. Although you are not serving as a teacher, your role in this program is invaluable in giving students an opportunity to practice, receive correction, and especially to communicate with a native speaker of the target language. We hope that assisting students in learning your native language will be a rewarding experience for you.

In the DILS program students teach themselves with the aid of audio (and/or video) work supported by a text (or texts). Your role is to lead the student through practice of the material s/he has studied, to provide correction, and to give more input of the language that the student has already learned from the audio and text materials. A wide range of activities can be undertaken during practice sessions, including role-play, repetition or reading aloud to practice pronunciation, short exercises, free discussion and more.

Practice Session Management

Avoid English. There will be no English used during class period. The practice sessions will be conducted entirely in your native language. If students ask questions in English, do not reply in English. Ask them (in your native language) to speak only that language.
Close Books. Do not allow students to have their books open (unless you are doing an exercise which requires the students to look at an illustration in the text for practice). Tell students in your language to close their books.
Practice, don't explain. Avoid giving grammatical or linguistic explanations. That is not your responsibility; students are responsible for studying grammar on their own. Practice sessions are for language use, not for language explanation.
Focus each session. Focus each practice session on the materials that students have studied that week, but also try to revisit material from previous sessions in new ways in order to reinforce those features of the language.
Be prepared. be familiar with the materials (audio and text) that the student is to work on for each practice session, and with the specific patterns, words, and dialogues the student is studying. Be prepared to give the students intensive practice on the patterns and vocabulary and repetition/recitation of dialogues.
Correct errors in a targeted way. That is, focus mostly on correcting mistakes with the language features that students are currently learning, as well as those mistakes that would be perceived very negatively by native speakers. Targeted correction is important since students will not be able to absorb constant correction or correction on a broad range of topics. Making mistakes is, in fact, essential to language learning because students need to test out their hypotheses about what is possible in the language. Always speak at your normal conversational speed, since that is what students will be expected to understand in most other situations where they will use the language. In every session students should be doing at least 60% of the speaking; make sure that you are not doing most of the speaking.
Emphasize listening and speaking. Although DILS programs usually focus on development of speaking and listening abilities, do remember to address reading and writing skills when appropriate.

Administrative Matters

Absences: Absences are not allowed. If your students need to be absent from a session, they may do so only with special permission. If a student is absent more than once a week or more than one week in a row, please inform the Director right away. Don't review missed material in order to help students catch up after an absence. It is their responsibility to remain current with the materials.
Weekly Reports: Please fill out the Language Partner's Weekly Report forms. They will provide the Director with a week-to-week indication of the students' progress, so that she can assist you if needed to provide the student with feedback concerning his/her daily performance in practice sessions. These reports are also necessary in order to process your pay.

More Information

For questions not answered on this website, contact dils@yale.edu or call (203) 432-0584.

Back to DILS home page.