السلام عليكم و بسم
لله الرحمن الرحيم
Online Social Websites for Students of Arabic as a Foreign Language -- Most are Free!
Online Social Networking presents a unique opportunity for students of Arabic to correspond and chat with other students of Arabic as well as with native speakers of Arabic!
Language learning community websites such as LiveMocha, Busuu, Lang-8, LingQ, LinguaTV, Hello-Hello now enable language learners to use their desktop, laptop, or iphone to access online state-of-the-art multimedia language instruction software as well as native-speaker peer tutoring feedback and chats with "friends" from across the globe. Some language learning community website are FREE (i.e. LiveMocha), but others charge a monthly fee, so it is a good idea to read all of the FAQS before you sign up with any website. Personally, I suggest that students first explore free sites before signing up for a monthly fee-based program. However, everyone has different financial resources and priorities, so this resource page will offer information about both free and fee-based programs.
LiveMocha and Lang-8 are two FREE language learning communities that offer Arabic. I have joined LiveMocha, and I have found it to be a very useful language learning site. I have not personally used Lang8. Students interested in studying commonly available languages such as Spanish and French might also investigate some of the other well-known online language learning communities. The following article reviews some of the most popular language learning communities: Review of Some Language Learning Communities: Busuu, Livemocha, LingQ, and Hello-Hello.
Most of language learning community sites seem to assume that a student can at least read the target language on a very basic level. Therefore, absolute beginning students of Arabic need to learn the Arabic alphabet before trying to use a site like LiveMocha.
1. LiveMocha
If you want to learn Arabic and just about any other foreign language for
I have been signed up and studying Arabic 101 with LiveMocha since December 2010, and overall I believe that it is a worthwhile language learning resources. I have a few caveats. The first is that in the Arabic 101 lessonsthe units contain both Modern Standard Arabic and some colloquial Arabic. However, there is never any attempt to identify which vocabulary words or phrases are Modern Standard Arabic and which are colloquial -- let alone identify which dialect the colloquial words are from. The pedagogy is based upon a modified immersion and "natural language acquisition approach" which means that there is no overt grammar instruction. Also, even the most basic Arabic 101 lessons assume that the student can read Arabic script. The Arabic alphabet is not taught. Words are written in Arabic script although some units have a "Tip" box off to the right side of the screen with peer-user
tips including some non-standard transliterations and grammar "tips."
Although I have found the Arabic 101 lessons to be pedagogically sound with helpful exercises, a good balance of visual and aural language input, and scored quizzes to help learners to self-assess their learning, I have also found some majorglitches and bugs in the Arabic language learning modules. One such glitch is "the drag-and-drop" exercise in which the user reads a sentence in English and then must "drag and drop" the appropriate Arabic words into a box in the correct order to create a grammatically correct sentence in Arabic. Sadly, the Arabic words gravitate to the left so that the Arabic sentences erroneously read from left-and-right instead right-to-left. This error would be very confusing to a very beginning student of Arabic. I have contacted LiveMocha customer service to report lesson glitches or mistakes, and they have been very receptive to my suggestions and user feedback. They acknowledge the issues and urge me to be patient because their programmers are working on patches to correct the bugs in the Arabic lessons.
An important supplement to the Arabic language learning software are the supplemental writing and reading exercises with native-speaker feedback. I have found most of the native-Arabic speaker feedback on my supplemental writing and reading exercises to be extremely helpful. Some native-speakers will take the time to offer detailed grammatical correction of my writing or offer insightful feedback and correction of my reading pronunciation. Other native-speakers seem to be less skilled and only offer a friendly but pedagogically unhelpful "good job." The LiveMocha community language learningsystem is based upon a voluntary give-and-take community spirit. While Native Arabic speakers help me with my writing and reading exercises, as a native-English speaker, I in turn help others who are learning English by offering constructive feedback and correction of their writing and reading exercises. By actively learning and studying in the Arabic 101 module, I receive Mocha Points as a language learner. By actively offering feedback to students of English, I earn Mocha Points as a "teacher" of English. The more Mocha Points that I earn, the more free language learning lessons I am eligible to receive in Arabic or any other language of my choice. This Mocha Point system is very fair, and it also serves as an incentive to keep a language learner engaged in the site. Overall, I have found the LiveMocha site to be a very helpful language learning resource, and I highly recommend it to others who wish to study Arabic or just about any other foreign language. It offers self-motivated students a rich language learning experience, and it is FREE! Best of all, LiveMocha is a growing company located in Seattle, Washington, and it is affiliated with Pearson Education (one of the largest educational publishers in the United States) and is also affiliated and supported by many universities and scholars in the United States. So, learners can be assured that the langauge learning content on Live Mocha is pedagogically sound, and Live Mocha is a safe and secure company to learn and grow with.
2. Rosetta Stone's Shared Talk
Although Rosetta Stone's language learner software is not free, their Shared Talk language learning social networking site is. It is free to register and find a language "friend. Their website is strictly for language learning, and they will disable any user who tries to use their account for any purpose other than for platonic educational language learning purposes. Users must be 13 years old or older to register.
The BBC Language Learner Guide site contains lessons, history, news, and lots of other great information for languager learners of Arabic as well as many other languages!
4. Arab Academy
Although The Arab Academy is not free, I have included a link for it on this page because it is a well-respected online Arabic language learning site, and they have an active global "online learning community" for registered users. Visit this page on www.arabic-learners.com/online.htm for a more extensive review of the Arab Academy program.
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