So, you’re finally in a private online chat with someone who wants to learn your language and is ready to teach you his (or hers). How do you start?

1. Discuss your plan at the beginning

If you want to make sure that both of you get to practice, and both languages get the same amount of attention, you can use a online timer, like this one.

If you have a particular topic in mind, announce it as soon as you start talking (prepare your announcement in advance; a machine translation program, such as Google Translate, might help with that).

For example, if you are practicing German, and your partner is practicing English, say something like this: “For my German practice, can we talk about job resumes today? I’m applying for a job in Germany, and I need to brush up on my vocabulary. And what do you want to focus on for English practice?” Or: “I’d like to practice the past tense of German verbs. Can I tell you what I did yesterday, and you correct me? Then we can do some grammar practice in English if you like.”

Also, agree on the ways you are going to correct each other. You can enter corrections in your chat as soon as your partner makes a mistake. For example, on SharedTalk.org people usually put an asterisk (*) before a sentence if it’s a correction. Or you can open a text file or an email editor, save all corrections in there, and send them to your partner at the end of the session. (And ask them to do the same for you.) This may be preferable if you feel that correcting each other all the time interrupts the flow.

2. Go for depth, as well as breadth.

It’s great to chat to many different people, so you get exposed to all the different ways that people use your practice language. In those short unplanned chat sessions, you and your partner will most likely be talking two languages at once, each trying to get some practice.

But once you get a couple of steady partners, try doing longer sessions in only one language at a time, to get a more focused experience.

3. Use word lists for language practice.

Search for “French word lists” or “<your practice language> word lists”, and you’ll find plenty of words to discuss with your partner.

Or, better yet, make a customized word list from your favorite text. Search for “online word list maker”, and you will find great utilities like this one, which can generate word lists from articles you just read or chapters of your favorite book.

Then translate the word list using a machine translation program, and ask your partner to correct your translations and give you examples of how each word is used. (Or you can enter the words in a search engine, and look at the results together.)

4. Use grammar topics for language practice.

You can search for “German grammar topics” or “<any language> grammar topics” and come up with a list of grammar points to practice.

Or you can make a customized list of grammar topics that you really need to brush up on.

Your word processor might have a grammar checker for the language you are learning. If not, just look up “online Spanish grammar checker” or “online <any language> grammar checker”, get something you recently wrote and look at the corrections. Then ask your partner to give you more examples of each grammatical construction that you’re having trouble with. Or search the web for examples and go through them with your partner. http://www.languagetool.org LanguageTool.org is one great free tool you can use, with support for over 20 languages.

5. Use role-plays.

“Pretend we are in a bank…”, “Pretend we are in a restaurant..”, etc. etc. There’s nothing like role-playing to make you laugh! And laughing, like any emotional behavior, will help you remember more. (See, e.g., this Wikipedia article on how emotions improve memorization.)

It works better if you use situations that you experienced recently or will experience soon.

Are you preparing for a trip where you are going to use your practice language? Make a list of situations you are likely to find yourself in and role-play them (airplane, customs, hotel, and all the rest; you can get a list from a phrasebook website like Lingvozone.com and edit it to suit your needs).

If travel is not in your plans, think of all the places close to home where you might be able to use your practice language. See a movie at a local French club and stay for a discussion with the French expats? Visit a Chinese herbal doctor and speak Mandarin? Speak Spanish to the clerk at the grocery store? (Yes, I’m lucky to live in a place where all those things are possible and easy, and I don’t take advantage of them as much as I should!)

To prepare for real life encounters, role-play all those situations with your online partner.

Pictures of objects will help you make role-play feel more real. So use Google Earth to role-play asking for directions, or Amazon.com to role-play shopping!

For more ideas, search the web for “ESL role play”. ESL means “English as a Second Language”, and right now there are more lesson plans for English online than for any other language, so adapt them for use with your own practice language.

6. Use real online tasks.

Another great thing you can do with your partner is do some real work online, and talk about it. Language is, above all, a tool that people use to accomplish real life tasks, and now there’s no shortage of real tasks you can do on the web.

Have your chat partner join you while you do some of your everyday online tasks: shopping, home improvement research, hotel reservations, whatever it might be. Send your partner links of the pages you’re looking at, and discuss what you see. Then ask him to do the same for you.

If you have a blog or a website, consider adding translations to some of your posts and ask your partners to help you out, then help them with their blog or website.

Consider volunteering together with your partner as translators or editors for some website such as Wikipedia, Wikiversity, Wikihow or any other site than needs language volunteers (e.g., one of the language exchange websites, such as Verbling or Italki).

For even more fun, record a short play or a poem in two languages together with your partner (use Skype recording software), and upload it to Librivox.org (an open source audiobook collection) or Archive.org (open source library). Sign up for an account at Airbnb.com (a great travel website), record a bilingual video introduction for yourself, and ask your partner to comment on it. Volunteer to add multilingual captions to YouTube videos, and ask your partner to review them.

Got more ideas? Post them here!