My LX1 required language community

I've provisionally elected to use Livemocha http://www.livemocha.com/learn/view as my learning community for critical analysis.

Livemocha is a language learning web-based community. It offers a range of free language learning programs, as well as a number of fee-for-service options. One of the questions I will be investigating is the "integrity" of the free offering - to what extent is the community designed to maximise revenue at the expense of social capital? The use of social capital to overcome buyer resistance is a strategy well-known and commonly exploited offline, as for instance, Amway & Tupperware. It might be interesting to see if this tactic is effective online as well. In general, "free" is a complex concept which merits exploration.

Livemocha describes itself as "... the world's most popular language learning site."(Google search "Livemocha").

Wikipedia characterises Livemocha as

Livemocha is a Seattle-based start-up company that is attempting to redefine the way in which people learn languages through the use of an online community of native speakers of different languages (language exchange), interactive online lessons andWeb 2.0 technologies. The system aims to create a level of language immersion that is not possible with the use of traditional language learning tools such as books and compact discs."

I've selected this site for a number of reasons:

1.) Language learning/teaching is my motivating field for undertaking this MA
2.) The balance between individual learning and community learning is readily student controlled.
3.) I will be travelling to Japan in the mid-semester break, so there is direct motivation.

There are ethical issues involved in participation in a learning community where one's prime interest is not necessarily learning, but rather critical observation. Since my learning time is already heavily constrained, it was necessary to find a learning community that was both flexible, and genuinely of interest. One of the ways that Livemocha enables this flexibility is by enabling community work to be conducted asynchronously with online participation; thus I can assess English & Chinese via email as one contribution to the community.

Curiously, although marking English assignments doesn't sound particularly exciting; it is actually motivating in two ways; firstly, one DOES feel like a useful member of the community, and secondly, seeing the progress that a variety of other students are making reinforces the possibility of making progress oneself.

Livemocha also builds community in a number of established online ways; both interacting with other social sites such as Facebook, and also facilitating the introduction of students at the same or similar level within the language group. (Actually, with the beginner vocab they offer in Japanese, this will take a while to get momentum, but communication is the essence of modern language learning theory, so at least this demonstrates a commitment to sound principles - in site construction, if not actual lesson design)

Another community mechanism that is in place is the ability to add tips/hints to lessons for future students to (potentially) use, plus a number of tools for developing materials for contribution to the community, both within one's own language learning community as a student, or in other communities as an assistant/facilitator. There are options to exchange materials for cash, for structured social capital within the site ("points"), or on a personal/group basis

The extent to which language acquisition can be negotiated by students is complex; one issue may well be that the learning community is much more prepared to negotiate than communities extrinsic to the learning community, as can be evidenced by employer group (one instance) rhetoric about the level of international student English, which is in marked contradistinction to the evaluations of the professional assessment community - typically a subset of the education community in which those students acquired their language.

Another issue of interest with an online learning community for languages is that reciprocity for language learning is a fundamental requirement, and reciprocity is highlighted in many studies of online learning as a low-frequency behaviour online.