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Livemocha Groupon Deal, to get or not?
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Has anyone used Livemocha for language instruction? Groupon is having a deal where you can get 2 years of instruction for only $29. It is usually $199.90. I was wondering if it is a program worth using? My girls are 7 and 9 and we would do the Spanish.
Here are some things that are said about it:
“Courses in 38 languages incorporate a series of Internet-based multimedia lessons in four levels of fluency. Role-playing exercises give students conversational experience without making them fight the same three Cactuars over and over again.”
“One of Time magazine’s 50 Best Websites 2010, Livemocha opens the door to multilingual mastery thanks to comprehensive lessons and a helpful online community that has grown to more than 15 million people. Through programs such as the popular Active course, students work to build conversational fluency in one of 38 languages, from French to Urdu. Courses include proven educational content from publishers such as HarperCollins. Cultural notes and practice with native speakers help students grasp conversational subtleties, such as the difference between a Spanish trill and the mating call of a blue jay.”
Livemocha is cool–it’s at least as good a computer based program as Rosetta Stone. BUT it is a sort of social-media type website. A LOT of the stuff going on there is feedback/contact between other learners or speakers. I was nervous about that when my son was using the program. Your kids are pretty young, so I’d spend some time on the site first (a lot of the social features are freebies, but there are assignments needing feedback from graders and sometimes that can be a little dicey.)
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll look at it some more. The kids don’t do much on the computer without me sitting right there, so maybe the feedback stuff won’t be a big deal?
momto2blessings, see if this works for you: Livemocha Groupon Deal
This program is free http://www.duolingo.com with no ads. I’ve only tried it for about 10 minutes, but it looks good. (It does teach reading and writing at the same time as listening, etc…. )
Does anyone know how long this groupon deal lasts?? It sounds to me like it would be pretty limitless with the social networking aspect (which I’m a bit leery of…but it would be for my 19 yo dd who has a VERY good conscience and head on her shoulders). I’m thinking college level…can anyone (Bookworm??) verify if that expectation is realistic?
I don’t know how long the deal lasts. It doesn’t give a specific period of time, only says “for a limited time.”
The content on LiveMocha is superior to Mango. (Also free at our library.) It is very similar to Rosetta Stone, except for the graded assignments by native speakers. (You get points for grading other people’s submissions.) When my son was doing it, this feedback was almost universally helpful (he did get one person who tried to find out if he was a girl and how old he was.) I really like the addition of the assignments. BUT . . . no, it is not going to make you completely fluent. I don’t know if it would really be considered college level or college prep level or not. My 16yo did it for a year, told me he was learning vocab but not learning to SPEAK, so we found him an online class instead. (He used the German, but the program is the same. Much like Rosetta Stone, many of the pictures are even similar across languages.
LiveMocha does have deals come through Groupon and similar places quite regularly, so you don’t need to stress about buying it NOW. Also, you can very much get going with the site without paying for anything. If you are undecided about the purchase, you could just use it for free now and then buy the deal the next time it comes up. (The deals change, so it might not be as “good” of a deal, but it will still be a deal.)
Some languages, like Mandarin, don’t actually have anything more that you get with the paid version (or so the customer support told me) — the lessons haven’t been developed as much, I guess. But the popular ones ones like Spanish do have benefits with the paid version, of course. And just a thought — giving feedback on other people’s work in learning English can be a very interesting experience to do with your kids!
Mango is good to get your feet wet, if your library has it.
I checked out http://www.duolingo.com …very cute and easy to use. I just made it through the “basics” so far, so not sure how well it will be with the more advanced conversation learning
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