Free
Offline Language Exchange Website for International and Local
Students in real time as an opportunity for meetings and knowledge
transfer.
Nowadays,
a lot of students travel, want to improve language skills and be able
to integrate effectively within new places of residence in various
countries. As world becomes more opened and multinational, Green
Development Association wants to create a webpage that meets
students' and travelers' specific needs. At present there are some
available online language exchange sites, however, above mentioned
project aims at offline solutions so connecting people and making
real meetings possible on face-to-face basis. Such interactions are
found to be positively associated with increase and widening the
possibilities of effective learning and integration. Websites that
offer offline language exchanges are outnumbered and not so popular
yet, they usually work as a message board.
What
are the main features of the proposed project? First of all, we
can define an offline language exchange easily. For example, you know
English and I know Spanish which creates a probability and
opportunity for both of us (English-Spanish language knowledge and
skills transfer). Thus, through the project website we might contact
each other, meet somewhere and devote 50/50 of our time to speaking
in Spanish and in English. Optionally, these meetings can be made
public once the time and location are arranged in order for other
people to join.
How
we can define a conversation group then? It is a group of people
that attend a regular meeting in a form of an event (weekly, monthly,
etc.) where few topics in a certain language are put in a discussion.
Skills can also be improved by public performances during such
meetings.
The
project we would like to develop is based on an innovative website
that gives a considerable range of possibilities. It focuses on an
opportunity for any user to find a language partner which lives
nearby or a conversation group that takes place in real time and is
also accesible. Our goal is to make it possible to facilitate and
provide language exchanges and conversation groups attendance for
anyone interested. The place of individual's stay does not matter
here. However, the main aim of this project is for the website to
become a #1 language exchange tool in Europe and in the world thanks
to innovativeness and effectiveness.
The
feautures of the above-mentioned website project are outlined below.
1.
Exchanges
-
Search people by language, present location and other personal
features in real time.
-
Search and create conversation groups by language, present location
and topic in real time. Those conversation group events will be
Facebook events created from the website.
-
Personal area: information about suggested users and conversation
groups, modification of personal data, etc.
-
Possibility of interaction between Facebook and the webpage in both
directions. We will use Facebook api.
-
Internal messaging system between members.
-
Create conversation events in a certain location. This system will
create a Facebook event (any person can create or join it). The
creator of the event will have the possibility to invite members that
are registered on the website and also any person on their Facebook
profile. In that way the promotion of those events is easier and
opened to everybody. All of those created events will be listed on
the main page of the website as long as they do not become past
events.
-
Real time maps showing the present location of users and the location
of present and future events . We will use Google Maps api v3.0.
-
Facebook style chat at the bottom of each page, where everyone can
create his 'chatroom' and
contact
any user using the chat. You can also exchange your Skype ID and
start to talk online. It can be disabled at any time but by default
it will be enabled.
2.
Language learning resources
-
Adapted Mediawiki encyclopedia that will contain language related
articles by any user. Moderator features will also be developed.
-
Possibility for any person to find a translator for his thesis or any
other work. In return the translator will gain more knowledge about a
certain language or it could be as a translation exchange: you
translate my work in your language and I translate your work in my
language. Some universities such as RWTH-Aachen have this system.
-
Possibility for any person to publish openly his thesis online and
get it translated by several users.
-
New vocabulary in some languages displayed daily on the main page
along with the translation (learn four new words every day in various
languages). It will also be possible to select daily words by
category.
-
Forum for language related questions
-
Possibility for universities to arrange international exchanges
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