Report from the SpeaQ With Me office

Hi I’m Dilber.

I'm studying Computational Linguistics at Saarland University and as a part of my studies I did an internship for SpeaQ With Me. I found out about the internship because one of the founders, Patrick, also studied in the same faculty, and a friend from class told me that they were looking for interns.

The idea of language exchange really interests me because I speak several foreign languages and want to improve them and learn more. I thought that the internship would be a good chance for me to see how language exchanges could work online, so I applied for the position.

Here I was with Kerstin, finding students to do the alpha test with.

During the interview, the team gave me an overview of the project and their aims and worked with me to figure out where I could contribute. When I was accepted for the position the team had prepared a list of tasks for me to get started on, so I knew from the very beginning that they were organized and wanted me to be an active member of the team.

The concept for language exchange on the SpeaQ With Me platform captivated me and I could immediately see the potential. From my own experience, I knew that practicing a language by talking to a native speaker is an effective way to learn. But getting help from the platform by matching you with the right conversation partners AND especially giving you some "extra tools" that help you have a conversation is a very good idea.

Creating these "extras" was my main work during my internship. One example is that during the chat you can open question suggestions (e.g. "How does a typical family in your culture look like?"). The idea is that these questions lead to an interesting conversation between two people on the platform.  Since the team had already created questions in English, I just had to translate them into German and French (German as my second native language and French as my first foreign language).

Another one of my tasks was to create vocabulary lists that should later be embedded in the website. I also got to write some little code snippets. The programmer Christian supported me and took the time to explain things that I needed help with.

My biggest task for the team was to create dialogues on the platform. These are like small theater exercises where each speaker takes a role and plays through a little made up situation. The dialogue helps the conversation by giving each partner some concrete instructions on what they are supposed to say next. Some examples of dialogues I created were how to practice an interview or how to order a pizza and so on. These dialogues are also sorted by ability level, so advanced learners can practice dialogues that are more open ended, and beginners can practice dialogues that have more structure and offer vocabulary and phrase support.

Testing these dialogs in a video chat with one of the team members was always really fun. And later when we were ready to see how the site worked with real users, we set up an alpha test with language students from the University. I helped carry out the tests with the students, and took notes about bugs or ideas for improvement. When it came time to review the results of the tests my opinion was asked for and appreciated.

In the team, I wasn't treated as a usual intern (like making coffee, and passing most of the time in front of the printer). Far from it! I was treated as a steady member of the team. That made my time in the group very pleasant.

My internship has finished, but in the meantime the beta phase is starting. The website will now be tested by students from universities all over the country.  I plan on also registering as a user and see what new features will be released.

I can hardly wait to see the further development of the website.

Best wishes for the team!

Dilber