We’ve written before about how learning Spanish can make your move to Costa Rica much easier. (See here.)  But, if you’re anyone like me, learning a second language can languish for what seems forever.  Enter master linguistic Rosetta Stone. They’ve just announced TOTALe, which, according to John Biggs at TechCrunch, offers to change all that with live language lessons and activities. According to Biggs:

“Their new system, called TOTALe, adds two interactive ingredients to the mix. The first is the Rosetta Studio, a live lesson area where you and two other students at your skill level work one-on-one with a live, native speaker.

The second ingredient is Rosetta World, a matching service that connects a native speaker of one language with a learner of the other and, in some cases, vice versa. This means an Italian learning English would be connected with an American learning Italian. They then perform activities or play games related to the subject matter and can chat with each other in their native languages. The World portion also takes advantage of Rosetta Stone’s extensive network of students who have used other company products in the past, ensuring everyone can be paired up.”

Get the latest scoop on this remarkable new language learning software by visiting TechCrunch.

I just read a post over on The Real Costa Rica Blog that talks about learning Spanish before moving to Costa Rica.  They noted a few stats that didn’t shock me

“I was speaking to the owner of one of the larger moving companies some while back, and he told me that he is now moving back “home” more than 50% of the customers he moved here originally.”

For learning Spanish, TRCR blog mentioned Coffee Break Spanish, which I’ve been listening to for some time.  There are also a few other Spanish/language learning sites that I would recommend as well.

• The learn Spanish Survival Guide
• Insta Spanish Lessons
• Donquijote Spanish Word of the Day
• Learn It Lists
• palabea.net
• mango languages

They also reminded me that if you’re moving from the USA that it’s also a good idea to learn the metric system. It’s things like that, that will make your transition into another country/culture, so much easier.

A New website launched this week that allows tutors to teach language online. TalkBean.com allows students to set up an appointment directly with their language instructors. All lessons are performed live, using webcams. As a tutor, you can set your schedule to show times when you are available or show your students when you are online if you choose to go live, making yourself immediately available to teach. If you have any additional lesson material, this can be uploaded to TalkBean from your computer, during the lesson only. There’s also other ways in which students can leave memos for you or notes on your message board.

A recent report shares an apparent few drawbacks to the site: the registration process is rather cumbersome, and you’ll need to sign on as a tutor, which requires a 4-page sign up as well as your Paypal information. There’s also no good system to find other users, students, or tutors, so I’m at a loss as to how students and tutors can best network with each other. Adding a search bar, a ratings system and other checks to ensure that the tutors on the site are reliable and helpful, as well as the ability to upload lesson material independently of live webcam lessons, would bring a lot of value to TalkBean.

Who tutors on TalkBean? Whether you are a university stident looking for a side job, or a professional tutor, you can advertise yourself on the TalkBean marketplace to find the right students for your class. According to the website, you don’t need special training to be a tutor, Just your passion and the Internet.

Live Tutor allows you to instantly create your own space to teach knowledge and experience to ESL students. After registering as a tutor, you post your program for students to find and enroll. All lesson are performed live using a WebCam and HeadSet.

Tutors get paid from a system that automatically secures payments from students to their tutors and, thereby, allows seamless international payments. Students must pay the full lesson fee upfront to TalkBean and once the lesson is complete. Lesson fee is deposited to the tutor’s TalkBean account as cyber money, which can be
withdrawn and sent to tutor’s bank account upon request.

Similar services include Grockit, LessonBites, Tutorom and xLingo.