As a consequence of a substantially revised national curriculum in New Zealand, all schools are now required to provide opportunities for students in school Years 7 to 10 (age 11+ to 14+) to learn an additional language. There are, however, very few intermediate school (Years 7 and 8) teachers who are additional language 'subject specialists'. This situation raises issues around effective organisation of languages programs. One initiative is to consider reciprocal role peer tutoring whereby additional languages students are paired with students overseas who speak the target language as a first language, and who, via technology, interact in ways that facilitate tutoring in the additional language. This article reports data from an investigation into an online reciprocal peer tutoring project. The project involved beginners' level Year 7 students of Spanish as an additional language in New Zealand who worked with reciprocal Spanish first language speaking partners of the same age in Colombia, who were studying English as an additional language. This article focuses on the New Zealand students' experiences, and discusses the impact of the project on these students' attitudes towards learning an additional language, and their perceptions of their proficiency in the language. Findings are used to consider the strengths and limitations of reciprocal role peer tutoring for language learning, in New Zealand and elsewhere.