Today Languages Out There officially launched its Facebook project in partnership with Vivox, the company which offers the first VoIP client on the social network.
Facebook users can now buy Self Study, One-to-one and Group Courses in the English Out There Book Store on the Facebook page of the company and practice their English with their native speaking friends on Facebook.
The Languages Out There courses had been developed over the past eight years and have been taught to students from around the globe. With this new partnership Languages Out There and Vivox are turning the biggest social network into a giant Language Exchange platform.
“Online social networks are changing the way we interact with each other on a global scale,” explains Jason West, founder of Languages Out There. There are millions of people looking to learn a new language on Facebook – either English as a second language or another dialect. Facebook and Vivox Voice allow us to remove any road blocks by connecting individuals on a shared platform with proven global scale. Immersion is a far more effective way of learning a new language than traditional classroom teaching. We are bringing that style to an online setting. After just a couple of sessions, learners will experience a considerable boost in confidence and fluency. It is Language Exchange 2.0 from the comfort of your home.”
“The combination of the Facebook platform , Vivox voice and Languages Out There course materials create a dynamic and effective language school that makes the world feel a little smaller,” comments Monty Sharma, co-founder and VP of Marketing at Vivox. “Languages Out There is just one of the many innovative means in which people are deploying voice chat in their communities on Facebook. By offering realtime communications to students they will see real results that will help drive their strategy while participants will experience lively and meaningful exchanges designed to forever enhance their lives.”
Beginner and Elementary courses are available in Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Spanish and Russian and further languages are about to follow.
The potential behind this partnership is enormous. Facebook already has far over 300 million users globally and most of them spend a couple of hours on a daily basis on the network. The huge success of social games shows that Facebook has the potential to deliver new ways of interaction to its users.
And one of the main reasons for people to use Facebook is to make friends and to chat with them. If you take this as a basis you already have the start for a potential language exchange environment. The problem is of course that language exchange is most of the time unfocused and lacks structure.
Languages Out There solves this problem with its unique course materials. Self study courses even have free mp3s to listen to. Students download an ebook, learn at their own pace offline and then meet their English speaking friends on Facebook to do the “Out There” task together with them. And with the Vivox voice client they don’t even have to leave Facebook for their practice or start another VoIP client.
Language Learning Communities like Livemocha, Busuu and Babbel have already proven the fact that people are interested in learning a language in a social environment. Languages Out There is now the first company that focuses on an existing social network with a premium paid product. It will be interesting how this will develop as Babbel recently changed their business model to an only paid product, too.
And besides offering structure for language exchange on Facebook we should not forget the two series for teachers, One-to-one and Group lesson plans. As they are delivered as ebooks teachers are not only able to print them out and to use them in classic brick and mortar classrooms, they can also be used in virtual classrooms. Jason West, the founder of Languages Out There is giving introduction lessons on WiZiQ, showing teachers and students how to use the material.
I did an interview with Jason for my EDUKWEST series where he explains the evolution and methodology of the Languages Out There material. You can watch the interview on edukwest.com. Jason was also presenting on the second E-Teachers Conference. You can watch the recording of his presentation on etcon.eteachersacademy.com.
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