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About this tool
Plan a balanced tandem session: equal minutes in each language, timed blocks with clock times, and topic cards by level.
A language exchange, or tandem, is a session where two people who each want the other's language split the time evenly rather than one teaching the other. This planner does the arithmetic: it subtracts the warm-up, feedback, break and wrap-up from the total, halves what is left, and gives both conversation blocks exactly the same number of minutes, with clock times if you enter a start time. It also draws three topic cards with three prompts each, graded from concrete beginner topics to abstract advanced ones.
Open Language Exchange Session Planner on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Enter "First language spoken" and "Second language spoken", a "Session length (minutes)" between 20 and 240, and a "Start time (24-hour)" if you want clock times.
Set the Warm-up, "Feedback per language", Break and Wrap-up minutes; whatever is left over is halved so Conversation block 1 and Conversation block 2 run exactly the same length.
Read "Time actually spent talking" and the Session agenda table of When, Block, Language and Minutes, draw three Topic cards at Beginner, Intermediate or Advanced level with New topics, then press Copy result.
The two conversation blocks are always the same length; any odd minute goes to the wrap-up instead.
Enter a start time and every block shows when it begins and ends, so you can watch a clock.
Each topic card carries three specific questions, which is what keeps a beginner block moving.
Sixty minutes is the common default and fits two 15 to 20 minute conversation blocks plus feedback. Thirty minutes works if you cut the break and keep the warm-up to three minutes. Beyond 90 minutes concentration usually drops faster than the extra practice is worth.
Strictly in half. The tandem principle of reciprocity means each partner gets the same speaking time in their target language, so if the first block runs long, the second runs long by the same amount. Mixing the two languages within one block almost always ends with the stronger shared language taking over.
No. Interrupting mid-sentence breaks fluency and most corrections are forgotten anyway. The usual practice is to note errors silently and raise at most three in the feedback block, alongside two phrases the speaker could have used instead, which gives the learner something to add rather than only something to avoid.
Keep the time split equal but change the task, not the clock. The stronger speaker's block can be an argument or a summary of something read beforehand, while the weaker speaker's block uses concrete prompts with more support. Equal time is what makes the arrangement fair; equal difficulty is not the goal.