Look out Rosetta, I’m Hooked on LiveMocha!

I’ve wanted to learn Spanish most of my life, but I’ve never gotten passed a couple of classes in high school and college.

I tried again a few years ago.  Even after spending a few hundred dollars on Rosetta Stone, I stopped using it after a couple of weeks.

That’s about to change thanks to LiveMocha, a social networking site focused on language learning. 

LiveMocha offers me something I was missing, community.  

 

Taking Lessons
Every lesson has four required sections (Learn, Review, Write, Speak) and optional exercises.

The software grades the Learn and Review sections and the optional exercises. The community evaluates the Write and Speak sections.

 

Feedback
One of the most satisfying features of Live Mocha is helping others in the community learn English.  Reviewing submissions is addictive!

In offering feedback, members of the community can type comments and record responses.  The recorded responses are terrific.  They allow the learner to hear the nuances of native pronunciation and sentence formation, much like what we’d hear in a public setting.

As you review exercises and others review your submissions, you start build your personal network. 

I’ve found myself committed to certain connections.  As soon as I see an email (delivered both to my LiveMocha and external email inboxes), I attempt to offer feedback as soon as possible. 

Why It Might Work

• A human connection.
• A large and growing community.  Even without connections, submissions are reviewed relatively quickly.
• Mutual benefit.  Many of my connections are native Spanish speakers learning English. 
• Notifications to external email. Having emails delivered to my inbox has helped me stay engaged.  This is especially true because the emails are from people that need their work reviewed, not marketing copy from a faceless company.
• Free and paid options. There are tutors, exportable content, and other options available to premium subscribers.

It's been almost four weeks now. 

I may not be as far as I’d like, but I’m still engaged.

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Comments

[littleleers]

I joined Livemocha over a year and a half ago. They have a great idea with the ability of internet language social networking around the world.

The concept is wonderful and innovative. However, there is NO quality control and no place for REAL feedback regarding the lesson content or in even treating their volunteer tutors as valuable. They "use" their volunteer native English speakers to correct lessons and then offer paid professional tutors for those members who want to pay them. The idea is that a Spanish student learning English will help me and I will help them. It doesn't quite work out the way it should and is not consistent. The quality of corrections by various members ranges from excellent to pathetic. Some people who don't even speak English at an intermediate level try to earn points by correcting other member's lessons (the idea is to accumulate points....for what I don't know).

I am a native English speaker and spent hours upon hours racking up points with the promise of some "reward" for doing so.

I, along with other members, have had suggestions to improve the English lessons. Any suggestions for grammar and content fall on deaf ears. Oh, and I am still waiting for some reward for correcting others audio and writing assignments. I quit the Spanish lessons after finding far too many errors and confusing sentences.

Now, Livemocha has their Premier program that members pay for. The lessons are more interesting, but they expect their other members (like me) to correct these for free, while collecting money for this pay for language portion of Livemocha. I call that Chutzpah.

I have noticed recently that many of those attempting to learn English are not getting their assigments corrected quickly or at all.

Livemocha...you can do better. You will fall behind the other language sites unless you decide to clean things up and are willing to listen to your dedicated members and make changes AND reward people for their participation. Sorry, No longer will I spend hours of my time correcting for free.

I have met a couple of good friends from Livemocha and still talk with them on Skype. I feel like that has been my payment as the cultural exchange with them has been very satisfying.

Oh, a good model for a language program is Spanishdict.com. They soon will be on top of the heap of language websites. They only have English and Spanish offered now, but once they have everything in place I believe they will add more. Spanishdict. has helpful and intelligent forum hosts and is VERY responsive to their members feedback. The language content and teaching is A+

[Clint]

Thanks for this great post! We are glad to hear that you like Livemocha!
-Clint

[Higher Education Blog]

Livemocha seems to be very interesting concept !!