Livemocha receives positive feedback

The Center for Language and International Collaboration’s new language learning service, Livemocha, costing the university 13 times less than Rosetta Stone.

Livemocha is known as the world’s largest learning community and offers 38 languages. It is available to all full-time students, faculty and staff.

The main reason for replacing Rosetta Stone was cost said CLIC Director, Erica Andree. Pacific’s contract with Rosetta Stone was up and major changes were being implemented onto the service. Licenses were going to be limited and students would be restricted to one language only.

According to Andree, faculty are very satisfied with Livemocha. The world languages faculty made the decision overall out of three programs in the running. The three included Rosetta Stone, Livemocha and another up and coming program called Tell Me More which is only available on PC’s. The faculty decided Livemocha was the best fit for Pacific.

“It adds a degree of authenticity,” said Andree about Livemocha’s community learning.

Livemocha is different from Rosetta Stone in the way of feedback. Livemocha allows students produce written and oral assignments out to the online community for feedback from native speakers as opposed to the voice recognition system from Rosetta Stone, which some students thought to be too precise, said Andree.

A study last year with Jan Purdy’s French 101 and 102 classes was conducted to see if Livemocha would be helpful to students. In the fall, students used Rosetta Stone and in the spring Livemocha. Andree said that student’s oral exam scores were higher during the second semester and usage of the language service was higher as well. Some students in Purdy’s class commented that Rosetta Stone was repetitive and that they found more options with Livemocha.

The study taken in Purdy’s French classes will be presented at the Oregon Technology and Education Network, O TEN, conference on Sept. 15.

Livemocha is available under the Tools section of the Pacific website and will be the language learning service for the next three years.