Ever made the New Years resolution that this year you are going to learn a language? Then Live Mocha could be for you.
It bills itself as a social networking site for learning languages. When you sign up you nominate a language that you wish to learn and specify your level (beginner through to native). Ichose Italian - no problems there - however a bit further on, when I went to enrol in a course, Italian was not an option - I could only choose from English, German, French, Hindi, Spanish, or Mandarin Chinese.
I chose German, (thanks to my CS reading I figure I already know a few key german words about food!) and enrolled in German 101. Most of the '101' level courses appear to be 50 hours, and it is self paced learning. It is divided into units (the idea is one unit per week) and you can pause and resume the units as often as you like.
Within 30 seconds of signing up I was being IM'd by a guy from Afghanistan who was learning Spanish - not sure what we had in common as it certainly didn't appear to be languages.
If Italian was an option I'd probably be using this site quite regularly, as it stands I'll check back occasionally to see if italian's been added but that's about it.
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There appear to be other sites doing this and I think that when we do this Thing, it would be useful to mention them. There's one called happy planet that I had come across (the link is in my blog post) but it was closed when I tried to access it, and this morning I had a comment on my blog from a guy over at Edufire.com where they are working on similar programs. I had a look at his blog and there was a post citing a few other sites. It's a logical thing for social networking to have spinoffs when you think about it.
Interested in knowing who the guy was who messaged you as I had one too. Let me know off line.
In Huangshan (黄山) southern Anhui province in Eastern China, Fu Shou-Bing logs on to the computer in the public library near his village. Since discovering ECpod.com (http://www.ECpod.com), the retired High School Chemistry teacher has been logging on almost every day to the English-Chinese teaching website. Sometimes he cycles the 25 miles home, cooks himself a simple lunch of rice and stir-fried vegetables with salted fish, often returning once again to the library and his new hobby in the evening.
ECpod.com boasts an educational website that teaches members conversational English or Chinese (no “this is an apple” stuff here) via video clips contributed by other members. After a vetting and often transcribing process by language tutors commissioned by the site, the clips are available free of charge in YouTube fashion. The twist? Members film each other in everyday activities, hoping other members will learn not just their native tongue, but also cultural innuendos lost in textbooks and more conventional means of language learning.
“One member filmed himself cooking in his kitchen. We got a few emails asking what condiments he used,” says a bemused Warwick Hau, one of the site’s more public faces. One emailer even wanted to know if she could achieve the same Chinese stir-fry using ingredients from her regular CR Vanguard (华润超级) supermarket. “We often forget our every day activities may not be as mundane to people on the other side of the world,” Hau adds. Another such clip is “loaches” - a Chinese mother of 3 filmed her children and their friends playing with a bucket of loaches - slippery eel-like fish the children were picking up and gently squeezing between their fingers.
Lately the members have also begun to make cross-border friends and contacts. The ECpal function works much the same way sites like Facebook.com and MySpace.com work - members can invite each other to view their clips and make friends. And it has its fair share of juvenile humor as well. “Farting Competition” features two teenagers and graphic sound effects. Within several days, the clip was one of the most popular videos that week, likely due to mass-forwarding by the participants’ schoolmates.
For other members keen to learn more than the fact juvenile humor is similar everywhere, there are many home videos featuring unlikely little nuggets of wisdom. “The last thing I learned from the site is why you never find green caps for sale in China”, says Adam Schiedler one of the English language contributors to the site. Green caps signify cuckolded husbands, particularly shameful in China as they are a huge loss of face. Adam vows not to buy any green headgear for his newfound friends.
The subject matter of the videos often speaks volumes about its contributors. Members choose their own content and film the clip wherever they please, some of their efforts drawing attention to rural surroundings and the quaint insides of little homes otherwise not seen unless you backpack your way thru the tiny dirt roads and villages along the Chinese countryside.
Idyllic countrysides and cooking lessons aside however, ECpod marries the latest video sharing technology with the old school way of teaching a language - from the native speakers on the street. It’s a modern, more convenient alternative to spending 6 months in China. And why not let the Chinese teach you?
Visit us at http://www.ECPod.com
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