A video entitled Social Media Revolution has been making the rounds via, ahem, social media. The video makes the case that social media is "the biggest shift since the industrial revolution".
The video, which tosses out a couple of interesting things for language learning, after the jump.
Read more...Probably the most interesting fact they toss out in respect of language learning is this (at 1:00 in the video):
2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction... 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
So, if you've run into a language teacher who's skeptical about your use of eduFire, Lang-8, LingQ, Livemocha, or any of the rest, hold your ground because you've got some good statistics on your side.
At 2:00 in the video, it points out a language-learning resource that has certainly not gone unnoticed by language learners:
Wikipedia has over 13 million articles. Studies show it's more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica. 78% of these articles are non-English.
That means there's a pretty darn good chance that you can get materials in your target language on Wikipedia (and, of course, for you English learners, that means that 22% of the articles on there are in your target language).
Different language learning methods serve various needs: Does RosettaStone have the best PR people ever, or is it just me? In an article noting how great immersion is, Rosetta Stone gets a nice blurb but no one notes how far it is from immersion. And don't even get me started on what Mark Frobose, author and founder of Macmillan Audio's foreign language audio line, says: audio CDs or downloads are "the single best way to learn a language". Seriously? So next time you have a choice between immersing yourself in a foreign country and listening to some CDs, go with the CDs! Riiiight.
Early Launch for Language: Money quote: "Children learn inductively, by example and by interacting with the environment around them, and adults tend to learn analytically and deductively." They treat this as a conclusion, but it's really just an observation. Ponder.
I did a quick Google search today to see what I could come up with for getting native-speaker tutors via video chat, and eduFire.com appears to really nail it, provided you have a few bucks to shell out. Tutors on eduFire explain what they can tutor in and set their own price in the profiles, and you just drop by, pick your tutor, arrange a time to meet with them via Skype video chat or whatever other method works for the two of you, and you're learning. The prices are all over the place, ranging from $10/hour for one native-English tutor I saw to $70/hour for one law-school graduate tutor (as a fellow law school grad, I'm glad to hear it).
The one recommendation I'd have for them is to set up a language exchange service, whereby you can teach your language to someone and they would teach their language to you, all free of any payments. It appears that in any case this can happen unofficially, but it'd be nice if they could make it an outright part of the package.
Update: After I put up the initial post, I noted that an ad for Myngle on my blog. I clicked through to find what appears to be a direct competitor of eduFire. Sooner or later I'll have to do a side-by-side comparison of the two, but for now if any of you have done so I'd love to hear about your experiences.
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