First and foremost, it deserves to be clarified that this essay is simply a writing practice, an opinion essay, and is supposed to be written formally, even though I am so accustomed to mix up oral and written English that I have not completely understood what the formal writing is in English.

Several weeks ago, I attempted to search and work out some approaches to recover and enhance my oral English. We all understand that learning a language needs long-term and numerous practice. Subsequently I did find an interesting way, language exchange online. Specifically, it is a method that you can practice a language that you are learning by teaching a native speaker of this language your mother language. After several weeks' experiment and attempt, I feel so excited that I decide to make a specific personal evaluation upon this method.

In the first place, it is more than apparent that there are a number of unraveled advantages for this particular approach, some of which I value most are listed as follows,  

1. Make friends with people all around the world.

Undoubtedly, through this method, we become able to directly share a wide variety of valuable things with the distant but close friends, including various information, ideas, books, music, movies, interests, culture, and experiences, especially what is happening in another country and those I could never possibly obtain from books.

2. Practice language with native speakers.

This is definitely my initial goal. Talking with native speakers frequently can not only help optimize how to express my thoughts efficiently and idiomatically through listening to how native speakers use words precisely and structure sentences naturally in real contexts, but also help find the language feeling and then build self-confidence to speak with native speakers in other circumstances. Furthermore, there is no more efficient way to polish writing skills than letting native speakers review and modify my writing practice, just as what I am doing now.

3. Re-understand your mother language.

Even though you are a native speaker, it does not mean that you are a good language teacher, especially when using a foreign language that you are still learning to teach. Soon you will find out that it is a huge challenge for you to teach a foreigner who probably knows nothing about your language and culture. More specifics you get into, more troubles you will be involved in. In this case, it is necessary for you to relearn the language basics and details of your mother language before and while you teach, and thus you will have great opportunities to compare the resemblance and difference of two languages and to re-understand your mother language from the perspective of a teacher, just as a famous saying that goes "To teach is to learn."

Maybe you have been enjoying the fruits that this unusual method brings you, or maybe you have been very disappointed about this approach, realizing that you have learned little and wasted most of your time to switch friends. In either case, I hope we all can take efficient advantage of this fantastic resource, and there are some personal experience and kind suggestions I would like to share with you all.

1. Be patient! Considering you are probably not a professional language teacher and your partner knows not so much about your language, it is unavoidable for you to feel frustrated, specially when you fail to let your partner understand you or your partner still can not grasp an idea after you have repeated for many times. Just be patient, always repeating one more time seems the only efficient way to learn any language.
2. One partner at a time. Even though everyone has different philosophy, I still believe that concentration is the most efficient and effective way to do anything. Thus, I recommend you to find a long-term, stable and serious language partner, because this would help you both better understand each other's language problems and progress, work out specific methods to solve these problems, go into much depth, establish a regular schedule to practice, share more interesting things and build a solid friendship.
3. Balance your benefits. If you want to maintain your partnership for a long time, then try to balance the benefits that you get from your partnership. Regardless of which language you use during practice, your mother language or the language that you are practicing, if you are a taker and rely on your partner more, maybe you could present something else that interest your partner as a compensation in return, such as culture things of your country. Conversely, if you are a giver, you should understand that teaching itself is significantly beneficial.
4. Be responsible and think for your language partner. No matter your partnership is temporary or long-term, please prepare for each practice and make sure what you teach is correct. A misleading point may cause that your partner would have to spend twice or more time to correct it in future. Meanwhile, always think for your partner. For instance, as the progress of your practice,  gradually increase the time you speak your native language, which would bring more chance for your partner to practice.  The more you invest, the more your partner would gain, the more you would benefit in return as well.
5. Learn from teaching. This is a significant experience that I learn from my partner. During practice, if your partner does not or can not speak a sentence clearly and idiomatically in your language, try to repeat or paraphrase this sentence for him/her in your language. This would not only help communicate but also help your partner make significant progress in the long term without embarrassing him/her. 
6. Learn some theories with respect to how to learn a language. There are some elegant videos in TED that introduce understandable and effective language learning principles. These theories would arm you well to solve problems that you may encounter during practice, and would fuel your language learning and teaching practice in the long run.
7. Be aware that your partner is not a professional language teacher. Even if your partner is a native speaker, it does not guarantee that he or she could speak standard accent and could guide you in a systematic way. Most of people have an accent to some degree, thus if your goal is learning a standard accent, be aware of the flaws of your partner's accent.
8. Last but not least, be aware that language exchange online is only an auxiliary method that provide you with more chance to practice. If you are a serious language learner, the best teacher may be still yourself, and the best way to learn language may be still through books, which are far more professional and systematic.