Why Some Things Are Better Done in Tandem

International audienceAt a time and age which glorify individual performance, self-training and self-transcendence, pedagogists are still trying to make use of the benefits of collaborative learning, especially in relation to second language acquisition (SLA), an essentially social and interactional skill. Language tandem represents an ideal environment to look into the benefits of co-learning. O’Rourke (2005, p. 434) defines tandem learning as ‘an arrangement in which two native speakers of different languages communicate regularly with one another, each with the purpose of learning the other’s language’. Not only do tandem partners have the purpose of learning the target foreign language, they are also committed to helping their partner learn their mother tongue. One key question in this respect is how cooperation and solidarity affect the process of second language learning