Rehearse the one situation you are dreading
Most apps give you drills: fill in the blank, pick the right answer, repeat after me. A Targeted Practice is a conversation. You choose a situation, your teacher plays it with you, and you have a goal to reach before it ends. You're corrected the whole way through, and there's one for every level, from counting to ten to a job interview.
And when you are not dreading anything, it is the fun way to mix things up: negotiate the release of a hostage, survive an interview that goes wrong, check into a haunted hotel, haggle at a market.
Practice that talks back
Exercises in most apps are the same for everyone and end when you get the answer right. A Targeted Practice is different every time, because it's built around what you say.
A real conversation, with a goal
Order at a restaurant, get through a job interview, check into a hotel. The scene has a goal, and you reach it by talking, the way you would in real life. There's no script to memorize and no single right answer.
It reacts to what you say
Your teacher answers your actual words, asks the follow-up a real waiter or interviewer would ask, and adjusts to your level as you go. Say it differently and the conversation goes differently.
Corrected as you speak
Grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, one correction at a time, as often as you asked to be corrected. Keep the ones that matter and discard the rest.
Or something you would never do in real life
Negotiate the release of a hostage. Sit through the job interview where everything goes wrong. Check into a hotel that turns out to be haunted. Argue a stallholder down at a market.
Same conversation with a goal, same corrections, any level, and a much better story afterwards.
Choose one, or ask for one
Pick an exercise from the list, or tell your teacher the situation you actually have coming up — or the ridiculous one you would rather have — and let them run it with you.
Soon you will be able to open an exercise from a link.
Conversation, practice, lesson
Use Free-Flowing to talk about anything, and a Targeted Practice when something specific is coming up, like a trip, an interview or that phone call. Both are real conversations with the same teacher, and both end the same way: corrections, a lesson, and your flashcards and games updated.
Situations to start with
Ordering at a restaurant
Read the menu, ask what a dish actually is, and send something back politely.
A job interview
Answer the questions everyone asks, and the one you hope they don't.
A doctor's appointment
Describe what hurts, since when, and how much — in the right words.
Checking into a hotel
Your booking, your room, and the thing that is wrong with it.
A hostage negotiation
Stay calm, buy time, and get everyone out of the building. In the past tense, ideally.
The haunted hotel
Check in, complain about the noise from room 237, and ask to be moved. Politely.
Pick the situation, start talking
Your first class is free. Bring the exercise you need, or ask your teacher for one.