Language Practice Online 9 Telltale Signs of an Awesome Language Learning Website

Language Practice Online 9 Telltale Signs of an Awesome Language Learning Website Language Practice Online: 9 Telltale Signs of an Awesome Language Learning Website Have you ever been  paralyzed by  a huge, overwhelming amount  of options?Think back to walking around a candy store or toy shop with mom.“Just pick one,” she tells you.You know from her tone that she means business.  You look at the wall of colors and imagine taking every last candy or stuffed animal  home  with you.Then it kicks inâ€"the  pressure of having to choose only one from the unbelievably many.That’s the same feeling language learners have after pressing or tapping that “search” button on Google. It literally gives you millions upon millions of sites to choose from.Obviously, you dont have time to go through all of them because, hey, youve got other things to do. Like work. Go to the gym. Fix your meal. Watch Game of Thrones. Write an interesting Facebook status. Obsessively read your exs posts from 2009 onwards.Unlike when you were a kid, you know from experience that there arent really that  many valid choices. In this case,  not all language learning websites are created equal. In fact, far from it. They all promise to be the best, but only a chosen few really deliver.So how do you know that the web page staring back at you is an awesome learning service  and not from one of the many wannabes who are all talk? That’s what this post is all about. It looks into the DNA of language websites in order to separate the wheat from the chaff.What are the hallmarks of an awesome language learning site? Here, well go through the list and look into some examples  that exhibit signs of true greatness.Read onâ€"youre about to save yourself a whole lot of time  filtering through learning program options. Language Practice Online: 9 Telltale Signs of an Awesome Language Learning Website1.The website is easy on the eyesThis is the first thing that you notice as soon as the webpage loads. Staring back at you is the right mix of colors, graphics and fonts. Nothing is jarring and you get a refreshing feeling. Its professional and polished.It’s not cro wded with ads, widgets or unnecessary “calls-to-action.”There’s a healthy balance of text and pictures. The colors, fonts, logos and graphics  placements work harmoniously together to give you, the learner, all the vital information you need.You want to  start a new lesson? Want to learn some vocabulary?  You know just where to click.  You want to  go to the forums? You know exactly how to get there.Everything is instinctive and effective. Thats the first mark of a great language learning website.One site which really exhibits this characteristic is Babbel, which offers courses for learning 14 languages. From the first page to the 100th, its simple clarity ensures that you have a pleasant experience. The images, fonts and elements are exactly where theyre supposed to be, making you feel that youre also exactly where youre supposed to be.If you find yourself on  Babbel again and again, know that it’s because it has been designed to feel inviting.2. Lessons are systematically arrangedThis is where the course developer puts their  fingerprint on the website. They  decide what specific lessons are included and the best way of presenting them to learners.Interesting side note: Many homemade websites are produced by enthusiastic native speakers, but a native speaker isnt necessarily the best person to design and organize language lessons. Sometimes somebody who has been in the shoes of the adult learnerâ€"or somebody with professional training in languagesâ€"might have more insights on the second language acquisition process.Lessons should be arranged so that they naturally build on each other. Meaning, a lesson on greetings wont  be followed immediately by a lesson on verb conjugations. On the other hand, a lesson on counting can be boosted by noun workâ€"so that after knowing the word for eight, a learner gets to connect it to  objects in phrases like eight candles, eight oranges and eight balls. After the lesson on nouns, a simple foray into  adjectives m ay follow so that the student can learn how to say even more specific phrases like “ten little kids.”Structuring  lessons is an art. Theres no one “correct” way of doing it, and there are several ways of building things  up. They can be sequenced topically or functionally, always starting from the easiest and gradually increasing in difficulty.Youll  know that the lessons have been successfully arranged because you wont experience any jarring bumps along the way. Lessons instinctively  meld into the subsequent ones and you just find yourself knowing a little more than you did a few minutes ago.Excellent examples of this characteristic  are: Duolingo  and Memrise.With these two, you hardly experience any drastic changes in the difficulty level. One lesson seamlessly flows into the next. For example, they have a smart way of overlapping new vocabulary words with old ones so that while you’re “reviewing” the old words, youre also being “introduced” to the new ones.3. Lessons come alive through creative use of multimediaThis is the technological equivalent of using differently colored and sized balls (tied to a string) to explain the Solar System.Multimedia can be a very powerful tool in the hands of a great language learning website. It can be in the form of pictures, audio, video, graphics, animation and games.Multimedia can make vivid the abstract, make interesting the boring, make memorable the mundane. So instead of memorizing el gato  as the Spanish term for cat, you might be presented with an audio pronunciation and cute pictures of a cat to accompany the textâ€"and maybe even a video of him chasing after a laser pointer.This kind of dynamic learning system not only captures the interest and attention of learners, but it also holds it long enough to embed lessons into their long-term memories. This is whats called learning.FluentU  is one of the best multimedia creatives around. With real-world videos that range from movie trailers, concer ts and music videos to cartoons, vlogs and newscasts, it offers you the unique ability to become fluent by watching authentic content produced by native speakers of your target language.Who would have thought one could  turn such entertaining,  unassuming clips into mini language lessons? With FluentU’s interactive captions and active learning toolsâ€"like multimedia flashcards, vocabulary lists, Learn Mode and moreâ€"you get to experience authentic language immersion online.4. The  examples stick in your brainOne of the clearest signs of a great language learning website is how memorable its lessons actually are. How well do those lessons stick around  after the user  has signed out or the computer has been switched  off?Can the learner actually remember the lessons beyond  the online learning environment?As mentioned above, a website can do this via the creative use of multimedia. Thats a big factor, and the rich context of FluentUs content really  helps the lessons work their w ay into  long-term memory storage.But there’s another factor at play hereâ€"an often-overlooked opportunity to make the lessons really, really stick. This would be the  perfectly chosen example.In the context of language learning, this might be  an example sentence or a usage example.  Throwing examples around is easy, but providing  one key example which vividly encapsulates the lesson is much  harder than it looks.One site which  hits the mark on this level is  Duolingo. Besides containing eye-catching  images, it often gives perfect grammar, vocabulary, sentence and usage examples to  illustrate the rules and  principles of language. With two words, the Duolingo system can teach the whole concept of “gendered nouns.”Users learn this right away when they go onto the site or app. They arent just needlessly entertained or given some silly things to play around with. You get started on the serious work right away. Good thing it all feels like a big game!This mix of key content and fun presentation is probably why its considered one of the best language learning websites today.5. It repeats itselfin different waysRepetition is at the heart of learning  because nobody ever gets something as complicated as language in one pass.The best language learning websites know this. They make use of repetitions in order to drill lessons into the long-term memory.  But there’s a caveatâ€"mere repetition can also be the fastest way to bore students.Therefore, awesome websites look for techniques to present the same subject matter in different ways, attacking it at different angles.  The reason for this is twofold.First, this obviates the boredom inherent in dry, tedious and harmful repetition. Second, it covers a wider range of learning styles.For example, not everybody is a visual learner, so there needs to be a way for auditory learners to get in on  the action. Kinesthetic learners learn best when they see movement or when they themselves move and do some physical activity (like typing).The site which  exhibits these traits and more is Busuu. With features like dialogues, writing exercises, audio recordings and relevant images, you can be sure that there’s something for different learning styles. Nobody gets left behind. You can choose to write, listen or look.Oh, and if spaced repetition learning is your kind of thing, check out Anki.6.  Fun tests and drills challenge your knowledgeHow do you know that you actually learned something?  When you ace the drills and earn brownie points from these language learning sites, of course!There should be some kind of feedback system that tells you,  â€œNope, you havent really learned this topic yet, buddy! Why dont you review, then give this drill another shot?”  or “Well done! Youre definitely ready for the next lesson. Why don’t you do just that?”These tests and drills function as psychological pats-on-the-back, making learners feel that their efforts are actually going somewhere. Plus, when theyre  creatively incorporated into the learning process, they become so fun  that they often reach the  point of being addictive.One of the sites that best incorporates creative tests and drills well is Memrise. Actually, with Memrise, you dont even really know that youre being tested. Unlike standard teaching methods where a series of lessons come first, followed by a test covering all those lessons, Memrise intersperses the tests almost randomly.These lightning tests come and go, and they come in different formats. You dont have to finish a whole block of lessons before you get tested. And if you get the answer wrong, youll know very quickly that there’s more work to be done on that word.FluentUs unique Learn Mode  teaches you vocabulary and phrases  through  video-based questions which take your learning history into account. You can either do these personalized  exercises  video-by-video, or you can revisit a longer list of compiled language later to review it all at once. (And all of the  reviews use spaced repetition software, of course, to make your study time efficient!)7. It connects you to a community of learnersYou can learn so much from people who have the same goals. Youre already in the same boat, so why not talk and help each other get there? Fellow language learners hold profound insights that may be the key to your language acquisition.The people behind the best websites, often language learners themselves, know this. They prepare comfortable “couches” for everybody, serving as attentive hosts to language learners the world over, setting up forums and language exchange opportunities that link learners and native speakers.One website which does this really well is  Livemocha.Livemocha has a language community built into its system. Members help each other not only by “language exchange,” but  also through volunteer work correcting practice exercises done by others. If youre a native speaker who loves to teach your language, Livemoc ha gives you a platform to help as many people as you can.8. It’s constantly  improvingThe Japanese have this concept of kaizen,  or continuous improvement. This is always  in the DNA of the best language learning websites. Their creators dont go on vacation once the site goes live.Nope. The people behind these sites are reading the pulses of their users. They actively seek feedback from language learners.  They go to forums and ask: What works? What doesn’t? What functionalities should be added?With this kind of site, youll always see something new. There are always projects in the pipeline. Improvements, app launches and new content are always part of the to-do list.New languages are added over time. New features are integrated. New team members come in. Lessons are sharpened and polished. The texts are re-written. Blogs articles are fresh and warm like each morning’s bread.Sites like Duolingo, Busuu, Memrise, Livemocha, Babbel and FluentU  do this  all the time. 24/7. Nonst op.  It’s really no wonder that they’ve reached the heights of language learning excellence.9. It points you to other resourcesAs mentioned previously in #7, the best sites don’t isolate you. In fact, they go out of their way to connect you to everybody. They also go out of their way to point you in the direction of other websites that might be of help.The best language learning websites don’t think that they have all the answers. Theyre acutely aware that it takes a whole village to teach one person something as sophisticated as language.Two websites that excel in this area are FluentU and Fluent in 3 Months.FluentU’s blog isnt only full of practical tips and techniques, its simply brimming with useful external links that connect you to some of the best language learning resources out there today.  You want to  meet the great polyglots of the world today? FluentU takes you to their doorsteps.  You want to  know the best books? The best courses? FluentU leads you there.Ano ther site that does this  is Fluent in 3 Months. It has a review section, for example, that lets readers know what’s good and bad about various language learning products. They actually test drive the courses, websites and books for you! So how about that?There you go, nine telltale signs that the page youre on is from a website that’s a cut above its peers.If you ask me, what ties all of these nine  signs together is the general importance that they give to learners like you. They make sure the site is easy to navigate and easy on the eyes because theyre thinking of you. They make sure the lessons are engaging because they want you to learn. They connect you to a community of learners so that you wont feel alone.The best language learning websites have your best interest at heart. If you sense that youre in the presence of one, sign up and remember your password because that site’s gonna take you places.