Every year Medellín welcomes thousands of foreigners who visit the city for either
tourism or business. Many of them decide to stay for a couple of months and others
stay indefinitely. The influx of foreigners from different parts of the world makes of
Medellin a multicultural and bilingual city. This environment is ideal to learn and
practice various languages, as it creates spaces where locals and foreigners meet to
interact, make new friends, and practice their language of choice.
In recent years there have been more and more common spaces, like language
exchanges and conversation clubs, where people would strengthen their language
skills in a foreign language. But what is a language exchange? It’s an event,
usually organized by a bar, cafe, hostel, language academy or an individual to attract
tourists and locals. The objective is for them to meet people and share their culture
and native language among each other. Language exchanges have turned out to be
very propitious platforms to learn new languages as they allow a true interaction with
native speakers. In addition this practice is very beneficial because, the same way
you can’t learn a sport out of a book, a language is not learnt memorizing
grammatical rules but practicing, talking, understanding the context in which
the words are used. As well as copying and creating their own sentences in
that language.
These spaces are very attractive because they also allow people from different
nationalities to meet around the same interests like their passion for traveling,
different cultures and, of course, languages. In this context Hablea organizes
languages exchanges in Medellin and Jardin, out of this effort a new ”paisa”
initiative was born: Wola Exchange. Wola is an organization created to share,
spread and promote language practice in Medellin. They spread the schedule of
these events through their Facebook group and page, Whatsapp groups and
Couchsurfing account. This has allowed locals and foreigners alike to be informed
about the different exchanges and conversation clubs taking place in every sector of
the city. Their posts are done in a daily basis so the people who are part of this
community are constantly informed and can assist regularly to these events.
These days Wola Exchange have had several events to share their project with the
community. They have also shared with us a guide to choose which events out of all
the languages events in Medellin they would like to attend. The truth is that each of
these events has variations that influence a lot the learning experience and the
practice of a language. Therefore, it is very convenient to pay attention to the
following aspects:
Exchanges vs Conversation Clubs:
As both options are available the attendees can determine which one is better for
them. In conversation clubs only one language is spoken: English, French,
German, etc. and they often tend to be academical platforms with a defined
structure. Furthermore, there aren’t many native speakers attending the event but
more language students. In the case of the exchanges you find all kinds: spaces with
directed activities, as well as spaces where people simply attend and start a
conversation with whom they desire, which forces them to be more sociable.
Languages practiced:
Some of these events state clearly which languages will be practiced, the most
popular are Spanish, English, French, and German. However there are also areas
that provide the possibility to practice less common languages like Japanese or
Chinese. People who attend these events are aware that at a certain moment they
will speak their native language to allow other attendees to benefit from the event as
well.
Time, location, entry for over 18 year old
As there are events in different sectors of the city like Poblado, Laureles, Prado,
Floresta, Centro, etc. attendees should think in matters like the distance, the time
and the day of week. The advantage for most people is that these events are close
to a Metro station so it’s easy to access. Generally they take place at night, between
7 and 8pm, every day of the week. It is also convenient to think weather the place
allows entry to minors as sometimes these events take place in bars.
Consumption:
Some language exchanges ask for a minimum consumption that usually ranges from
3 to 5’000 Pesos. Some attendees attend, participate and at the same time share a
beer, coffee or any other drink. However some go for places consumption is not
mandatory. Something that must be taken into account is that even if the
consumption is not mandatory the incentive of some of these places is to attract
more people to order some of their products, so the meaning is implicitly understood.
This is not the case in spaces like language academies where the incentive is
educational.
Level of language:
For beginners who might not feel very confident, conversation clubs are ideal as the
activities are generally aimed at them. They allow people who are not so confident to
express themselves. In language exchanges, as it’s mostly attended by foreigners,
an intermediate or advanced level is required to have meaningful interactions even
though some people just go for it and get along very well
Popularity:
Some exchanges and clubs are very renowned and this makes for a very high
attendance, an average of 30 to 50 people, which has advantages and
disadvantages. With so many people it is possible to practice more than one
language as it is likely to find people that speak languages that are not so common.
On the other hand it is possible that there might be a lot of noise which would make it
more difficult to hear the other person so it is not very recommended for beginners.
In Hablea we teach Spanish to foreigners who come to our city but we also
promote interculturality and the interaction between locals and foreigners. This
is why we help our students find favourable spaces to practice Spanish. So besides
organizing our own language exchanges we also promote initiatives like this one.
If you want to find out about all these events visit the Facebook page of Wola
Exchange and follow them on social media here.
Written by: Omar Zoeir