- Mixxer is a free educational website to make connections for language exchange. The whole premise is to learn and help others in the process. I have met many people on Mixxer… you first search for people, browse profiles to see who you are interested in learning alongside, and send them a message. Once you make the connection on Mixxer, you can then add that contact to Skype and take it from there. Mixxer also offers a space where people can share their writing and receive feedback and edits.
- Linqapp is a free language exchange app. This is a pretty neat tool, because you can ask questions of native speakers, and get responses almost instantaneously. The app provides a hub of communities where people from around the world are connected for the purpose of helping one another. For example. when I was translating the Let it Go song as part of my learning project, I got some help on a few lines from this community. I have also met some native Spanish speakers on here that I have since connected with on Skype.
-
Skype has been an incredible tool for language learning. The people I have connected with via Mixxer and Linqapp, I have added to Skype. I've had some rich learning conversations via text chat and video chat with native Spanish speakers who are also interested in learning English. It's a great experience to learn one language and teach another simultaneously. Through this medium, I've also learned a lot about culture. While I'm quite familiar with the culture in the Caribbean and Yucatan area of Mexico, it's been a great learning experience to connect with people in Spanish-speaking countries around the world to learn about language and culture… and even learning about cuisine! Below are some of my more frequent contacts using this tool:
- Fredy from Neiva, Colombia
- Andrea from Bogota, Colombia
- Roberto from Zaragoza, Spain
- Maria from Guatemala City, Guatemala
- Sofia from Goiania, Brazil
- Carlos from Tegucigalpa, Honduras
- Raul from Madrid, Spain
- Twitter, as we all know, is a fantastic tool to connect with others. I have added certain hastags to my TweetDeck and HootSuite, including #educachat, which is conversation and sharing space about education (like #edchat) in Spanish. While using the hashtag, I was floored to have a native Spanish speaker connect with me who happens to have the same Technology Coach role in Mexico, as I do here in Canada. Francisco and I have connected on Twitter and use Twitter's direct messages. It's really cool to not only be learning a language, but be able to discuss a shared passion for educational technology in Spanish as well! I have learned a lot from Francisco and I feel very fortunate to have him in my PLN.
@GennaRdz Pues tu español va excelente y para mí también es un placer estar en contacto por las experiencias que podamos compartir, saludos
— Francisco Ávila (@favareja) February 6, 2016