One-on-One Language Connectivity

ARTICLE: "Mandarin 2.0: How Skype, podcasts and broadband are transforming language teaching," The Economist, 9 June 2007, p. 73.

I just love this one.

You've all seen the stories on Indian tutors going live with students here in the States, so this iteration should surprise no one: why not learn Chinese by direct conversation daily with a Chinese over the Web?

Connectivity immersion, you can call it.

Get your own language skills the way God intended: F2F--however virtual.

Remember when language training was one of those "non-tradables"?

Remember what I wrote in "State of the World": if it involves lotsa memorization (and what is language but that?), then it can be outsourced, because if you can commit it to memory, then so can anyone else--whether it's medicine, or the law, or ...