[schacon]

This is the problem I always had with tandems and some tutors as well. One of the things I like about using our system is that all the exercises are guided.

They have instructions, you can advance at any time, there is always an explicit task or situation or game to play. Sometimes the tutors read a story and then ask you questions about it, sometimes there are word games, sometimes there are situations where you're told what you need to do and you just try to role play. Always after you've at least minimally learned the vocab and grammar needed to do it.

Nowadays I will sometimes wander and just have a random conversation with a tutor, but when it's finished, I just click 'Next' and get a new thing to try. It can be a little scary at first, as any in-person meeting or class environment often is the first time, but it becomes fun and comfortable pretty fast. You really aren't expected to be interesting (as many of my tutors can attest, I rarely am :) )

The compilation video (is just from the video feeds, but I removed the actual exercises we were doing. It's entirely guided. These were just sort of random conversations that I happened to venture into as an aside from the main curriculum as I got more familiar with the tutors as a way to illustrate how my spontaneous conversational skills improved over time.

[casey_lang]

Thanks for the clarification! I've signed up to be notified when Spanish is added and will give it a shot