AMD 5

Für diese AMD I registered on "Livemocha.com". This is a website that allows people who want to learn languages connect with people that speak that language. I found speaking and writing exercises of all difficulty levels designed by German speaking people. Instead of following a preset curriculum, Livemocha allows people all over the world to teach eachother. The concept is very interesting to me.
Immediately after creating an account I found a beginner-level writing exercise that had me write a paragraph about myself. "Ich heise Lukas, Ich komme aus Michigan, etc..." I then had the option to submit it to another Livemocha user who speaks German natively, where they could then review it and send feedback to me. There are hundreds of exercises like this ranging over all levels of difficulty. They even have courses that you can enroll in.
The entire website is based off of a mutual-feedback system. To request feedback on a submission, it costs you a certain number of credits. To earn credits, you have to give feedback to someone else that is learning English. This system ensures that everyone helps each other and the website can run completely autonomously. Pretty neat.
In the middle of tinkering around the website, I received a pop-up of someone from Shanghai requesting to chat with me in English. I thought I would give it a shot. I chatted with the gentleman for a few minutes about where he was from and what food he likes. He had some mistakes but for the most part he spoke great English. What an easy way to connect with people around the world!
After completing the writing exercise I decided to try a speaking exercise. I chose one called "Lange und kurze Vokale/Umlaute." To complete this exercise I had to submit a recording of myself pronouncing a list of words that use different vowel pronunciations. If I wanted to I could spend some credits to get some personalized feedback on my pronunciation. I think this website is a very helpful and effective way to practice/sharpen up your German skills in both speaking and writing. Whoever came up with the idea for this website is a genius!