E-Learning Collaborative System for Practicing Foreign Languages with Native Speakers

Abstract

—The paper describes a novel social network-based open educational resource for practicing foreign languages with native speakers, based on the predefined teaching materials. This virtual learning platform, called i2istudy, eliminates misunderstanding by providing prepared and predefined scenarios, enabling the participants to understand each other and, as a consequence, to communicate freely. The developed system allows communication through the real time video and audio feed. In addition to establishing the communication link, it tracks the student progress and allows rating the instructor, based on the learner's experience. The system went live in April 2014, and had over six thousand active daily users, with over 40,000 total registered users. Monetization has been added to the system, and time will show how popular the system will become in the future.