In this text I will briefly explain what it has been like to be using Mixxer as a language learning tool.
I started studying English in August 2013 when I was at college. At that time I knew very little because language classes in public school in Brazil are very poor in terms of quality. As the course went on, I improved my vocabulary and grammar knowledge. But I got stuck when it was about listening people talking in English, and that was when I decided to start watching videos in English on my own.
Watching contents in English helped me a lot. I personally found ted.com very helpful, for it has videos on lots of different subjects and practically all of them have English subtitles. They even have subtitles in my own language, which is Brazilian Portuguese, that let me check if I understood what I had watched. The improvement in my skills was such that it has been a while since I had to use subtitles.
After improving my listening skills I turned my attention to my writing skills, and that’s when Mixxer came along. I had in my mind that I should write something and then have it marked by someone else. I had been searching the Internet for some cheap and efficient way to practice my writing for some days when I found the Mixxer website. It was simply what I wanted: I could have my writing marked and, in exchange, I would have only to mark someone else’s text in Portuguese, and that would be just fair. So far I have written three texts (with this one being the fourth) and, though I know it is not much considering I have been using Mixxer for over a year, the errors pointed out allowed me to direct my efforts where they were most needed.
As a proof that something good could get even better, I started using Mixxer to practice my speaking skills, because videos on YouTube or ted.com are great for the listening part but not so much for the speaking one. I have already participated in more than ten conversations, most of them with students from the University of Arkansas and the rest with students from Dickinson College (the same institution that keeps Mixxer going on).
Up to now, two characteristics of talking to people through Skype have caught my attention. Firstly, most students to whom I talked had been studying Brazilian Portuguese for less than one year. I am not even sure if I would have the guts to talk to someone in a different language after studying it for such a short time, but they did. Congratulations! Secondly, when I watch a video I can play it again as many times as I please to understand its contents, but when I talk to someone is not like that at all. If you are talking to someone, you can, of course, ask that person to repeat or speak more slowly, and this is the trick: You have to interact with each other in order to communicate as efficient as possible. In this case you cannot just click the replay button, you have actually to manage your own limitations of the language and find a way to use what you know to say what is in your mind. This characteristic may cause some people to feel uncomfortable, but, let me say, I am still to know of anyone going through the process of learning something new without facing some discomfort.
That was all I had to say. If you can check my grammar and punctuation I’d be really grateful. I have some trouble with commas. It’d be of much help if you could give special attention to that.