Whilst the idea of building up a language network is a good one, many of the sites in question have been a little over eager to jump on the social networking bandwagon. In many cases, building up “friends” or connections seems to be the primary aim. On one of these sites alone I have nearly 100 outstanding friend requests. Of the few requests I have accepted the main aim of the initiating party seems to have been to build up a network of foreign friends and not language learning. I have had the odd request for help in completing English homework or writing short essays, but very few that seem genuine about language exchange. There are undoubtedly exceptions to the norm and I have had a number of specific questions answered on these sites, but in all cases the questions have been answered in a public forum rather than by a language partner.

So, why is it that these sites fail to deliver. My theory is that they encourage people to spread themselves thinly between a wide reaching network of possible language partners rather than to encourage people to spend time developing one or possibly two genuinely constructive relationships. The trouble is, that once such a relationship is formed there is never any need to visit the site in question as other alternative communications methods become preferable (Skype, etc.). Without keeping people on the site, there is no hope of driving up advertising revenue.

Upon reflection, and this does come as a real surprise to me, I have had far greater success with from an unexpected quarter; everyone’s favourite micro-blogging service, Twitter. I think the reason for this is partly in the difference between a “follower” and a “friend”. Let me try and explain.

I follow only those people who I find valuable. The advantage of this is that I can vary the level of Mandarin in my Twitter stream. The converse of this is that I am only followed by people who think I add value. Most of my Tweets are in English, but just occasionally I tweet in Chinese. It has been remarkable, but almost every time I tweet in Mandarin, someone has responded to correct my mistakes or answer my questions. Just occasionally there have been brief discussions purely in Chinese. I find this interesting, as all this takes place with no obligation to foster an ongoing friendship or build up a network. Another nice feature is that I am able to jump in and out of the flow as time allows. It is this lack of obligation or expectation that works so well.

I think micro-blogging services have a lot to offer the language learning community and there are a number of interesting things that may (to varying degrees) improve the usefulness of Twitter as a language learning tool. #MandarinMonday and the AudioBoos by @pinyin are two such examples.

But don’t expect magic, not even from Twitter. With all these tools, it is worth remembering that they are just that, tools. You only get out what you are prepared to put in. Do you practise a language online? If so, I’d love to hear how your experiences compare to mine.

[Photo Credit:] Markus Koljonen