Teego: Yeah. Natalie:‘ Qualidade’? Teego: Yes, the‘ quality’. Natalie: Yes,‘ quality’, yes the‘ quality’ of life grow up too, so is the both.
In Example( 6), it is Natalie who assumes the role of assistant and teaches Teego how to pronounce some words in Portuguese. Natalie and Teego were talking about Teego’ s trip to Brazil, particularly about some of Teego’ s relatives who live in a Brazilian city called São Paulo. The topic of the conversation leads the participants to deal with some vocabulary related to family members. Natalie begins to work with the Portuguese language by helping Teego with the learning of the word“ mãe”, as shown in Example( 6).
Example( 6) Interaction via Openmeetings— August 28th, 2010 Natalie: Yes, yes, it is. You want to learn how pronounce the name of the relatives in Portuguese? Teego: Yes, I would like to, yeah. Natalie: Yes.‘ Mother’ is‘ mãe’. Natalie: [ Chat ] mãe Teego: How do you pronounce it? Natalie:‘ Mãe’. Teego:‘ Mãe. Mãe, mãe, mãe’. Natalie: Or if you want to, like me, I pronounce like a … some child pronounce like this … But is a very … with love, very carefully way to say:‘ mamãe’. Natalie: [ Chat ] mamãe Teego:‘ Mamãe’. Natalie: Yes? Yes,‘ mamãe’ is more cute. Teego: Yep. Ok.
According to Brammerts( 1996) and Telles( 2006), reciprocity in tandem learning can be observed in the attitude of one of the participants being concerned and interested in the language learning success of the other. In this sense, the work with vocabulary in English and in Portuguese reveals the commitment of Natalie and Teego towards each other’ s language learning process: Natalie is improving her English language learning, and Teego is learning some Portuguese vocabulary.
In Example( 7), it is Teego who takes the opportunity to teach German, his native language, to Natalie. They were still talking about family members, when Natalie asks Teego how to say the word“ sister” in German. It is important to elucidate that German was not a language to be learned in the teletandem sessions, but it was also introduced in the interactions because Natalie wanted to benefit from the fact that Teego was German and so he could help her with the learning of some vocabulary in that language.
Example( 7) Interaction via Openmeetings— August 28th, 2010 Natalie: And how do you say irmã in German? Teego: Irmã was, eh, sister, wasn’ t it? Brother? Sister? Natalie: Yes. Sister. Teego: Sister. Sister would be, ah …
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