Online Language Learning Communities.page

I ran across a NYTimes article this morning that highlights some new, online language learning communities which blend traditional flashcards/exercises with a variant on social networking.  I’ve been experimenting with the primary example, a site called Live Mocha, and have been extremely impressed with the idea.  Essentially, the site gives you the opportunity to interface with native speakers (via voice recordings and typed exercises) to get their comments/feedback on your grammar, etc., as well as providing the traditional “language immersion” types of activities found with software packages like Rosetta Stone.  In return, you are asked to give comments and feedback on the work of other students trying to learn (presumably) English.  The result: a social network of language learners which offers more than traditional software packages will be able to offer in the immediate future, namely, feedback from real people.  But the true kicker is that most of this is free.  There are packages (priced in the $10-$20 range) for additional exercises, but you can earn credits towards these extra features by helping others and earning “teacher points.”

Perhaps what is so brilliant is the simplicity of the idea.  The company has to do very little work (beyond putting together initial flashcard decks and exercises), and like any social network the real value is gained in attracting a large community of users who can help each other more effectively than hiring a staff of online “tutors.”  That said, there is still room for improvement.  I think a site like this could really leverage SRS capabilities (obviously), and perhaps a way for users to submit their own lessons/exercises.  Of course the risk here is that the site might become cluttered with too much content.  But even a simple up/down rating system (with perhaps only the top few content packages in each category being offered by default) would solve this, and community members could earn more “teacher points” by evaluating content in their native language.  In that way, courses could be organically grown, with the incentive to contribute being access to premiere content in the language you are trying to learn.

As far as a connection to Learnstream, I am inspired by this sort of communist, social-network approach to learning.  Using the math example, instead of hiring tutors, members of the Learnstream community could give feedback on proof techniques, suggest alternative explanations, etc. while earning some sort of “reward” points that give them access to additional/premiere content.  This way, learning is egalitarian in that you don’t need to pay, you just need to contribute to the education of others, and the barrier to additional content need not even be that high.  Of course, some of these ideas overlap with ideas we’ve had for other “social” features, but there is definitely some room for old-fashioned copycat innovation.

Kudos to Live Mocha on putting together a quality site.  I’m especially excited because I’ve committed myself to a crash-course in french over the next 12 months in preparation for a potential stint in french-speaking west Africa.  We’ll see how well this works!