This year, we’re serving your schools like never before. School budget cuts have swept the rug out from under language programs, sucker-punching America’s ability to prepare students for a globalized world in the process – but we’re here to fight back. We’re thrilled to be launching a scholarship program that will help to rebuild language programs in U.S. high schools and community colleges. Over the course of the year, we’ll be donating 5 million dollars in online language instruction to schools in need, based on an application process. The administrative flexibility of our tools means we’re uniquely positioned to help schools build on existing programs or add additional languages at free or reduced cost.

Our dream is a world full…  read more

Some good news – Livemocha has been named a finalist for the BETT Awards in the Tools for Learning and Teaching category.

What are the BETT Awards, you ask?

The annual British Educational Training and Technology (BETT) Show is a chance for decision-makers in the field of education to review the best of this year’s information and communications technology (ICT). The event arms them to choose the best tech options for their program.

A little more about the awards and event…
Dedicated to showcasing the best in UK and international educational technology products, resources and best practice, BETT has enabled thousands of practitioners to enhance their knowledge of learning through technology.

BETT is the world’s leading event for educational technology where education professionals can…  read more

Guest blog post: Julia Bonnheim - Sales Operations Manager at Livemocha

This is a very exciting week at Livemocha.  Not only does it happen to be national game and puzzle week (no seriously, check it out), but it’s also time for the annual ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language) Conference.  This year, ACTFL is in Denver, so we’ll be here in the Mile High City for the next several days.

The ACTFL Conference is an amazing opportunity for the Livemocha Team to interact with, collaborate with, and learn from a group of people we value and respect enormously: teachers.  This year, we’ll be showing off our new Livemocha Management Console that makes it easy for teachers to manage and…  read more

A lesson we won’t soon forget: going global is out of scope if you’re hoping to take on the entire world in one bite.

Localizing a global website to make sense to all of its visitors is not as simple as hiring a translator. Internet landscapes vary internationally, so packaging and even website interface should align with local consumption behavior. Add the complexity of a social component and you’ve got yourself a humdinger. So at Livemocha, we quickly realized two things: it would be dumb to go in blind, and equally self-defeating to bite off too much at once.

Once we decided to start by building presence in Brazil, a careful approach paid off in spades. It led to a partnership with Abril…  read more

Recently, we contacted some of our community’s top contributors to ask if they’d like to take their efforts to the next level, get recognition for being awesome, and earn a little sumthin’ sumthin’ along the way.

The idea is that there are a lot of language superheroes quietly (and altruistically)  helping others learn on Livemocha, and we want to:

A:  Distribute their helpfulness evenly among all Livemocha students

B: Publicly recognize them as the superstars they are and reward them with premium content

C: Let students know they can trust the feedback these superheroes provide

Upon receiving our invitation to become an Apprentice Expert, one member blogged about it and discussed his experience contributing to the…  read more

In recent decades, there has been a rapid globalization of markets and skilled labor. In the past, the primary factor that drove US companies overseas was off-shoring for cheaper labor. Today, however, the focus has shifted to acquiring skilled talent and gaining accessibility to fast-growing markets. Businesses of every size must bolster their knowledge of other languages and cultures in order to compete effectively.

Next week, Livemocha CEO Michael Schutzler will speak to the necessity of language training as an essential workplace tool at the Seattle Interactive Conference. The inaugural event, to be held November 2-3 at the Washington State Convention Center, will bring together the tech industry’s brightest leaders.

In line with the conference theme of “transformations in interactive technology,” Schutzler will offer…  read more

Login to Livemocha today and you’ll be greeted by a new logo.

A lot goes into a logo. Figuring out how to visually represent what your company stands for involves some metaphorical blood, sweat and tears. The process becomes much more stressful when a team is unfocused and unsure of who they are.

At Livemocha, we don’t have that problem. We’ve always known what we’re about. We’re all about people. Without our thriving community, we would be just another language learning company.

So how do you reflect that human touch in a logo? By visually depicting how much more fun it is to practice with a real person versus a machine.

Andrea, the Livemocha designer who created the hand-lettered logotype, described the design…  read more

Brazil has always been a challenge for Livemocha, but a singularly rewarding one.

By happy accident, our social concept of language learning turned out to be a great fit for the Brazilian market. Social media use is more widespread in Brazil than in any other country, so it may come as no surprise that feeding Brazil’s skyrocketing demand for language with a social solution creates a pretty potent recipe. The recipe becomes only more appealing when seasoned with intercultural connectedness and a dash of armchair travel.

So appealing, in fact, that Brazilians make up more than 20% of our member base. Considering that we are US-based and include members from every country in the world, that’s an impressive figure – and…  read more

Curious how Livemocha can be implemented in an academic setting? Our Active coursework is popular in a variety of scholastic contexts, including systemic inclusion in existing study programs. Most recently, Active English was integrated into the Intensive English curriculum at Wilkes University. Check out the case study below, or read all four Livemocha Case Studies.

 
Using Livemocha to Supplement College Preparatory English Curriculum
Kim Niezgoda, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA
 

Kimberly Niezgoda is Assistant Director for the Wilkes University Intensive English Program, which prepares international students with university-level language skills.

Wilkes University often offers conditional acceptance at the undergraduate level, based on a score of 60 on the TOEFL or 5.5 on the IELTSs. The Intensive English Program places students in one of five…  read more

Forbes posted an article today written by Livemocha CEO Michael Schutzler. Check it out on the Forbes Blog, or read the full article below.
Thanks to the Internet, even the smallest company can be a multinational. Over two billion people are online and an additional 500 million will connect for the first time this year. Over four billion people have a cell phone with SMS capability and many of them will upgrade to an Internet-enabled smartphone in coming years. Technology has unleashed a global market unconstrained by space, time or travel barriers.

Language is the one material barrier that remains. As technology delivers access to a worldwide arena of talent and customers, effective …  read more