LingQ has just announced a major upgrade to their unique online language-learning platform. Following is the announcement from LingQ Central.
New Features for LingQ Platform
Major New Release Coming Thursday, November 20
It's been a little over a year since we launched LingQ and we have been constantly improving the site since then. One of the most frequent comments we have received is that users don't understand what to do. "Where do I start?", "What should I do now?", etc...
We know that if we can get people started on LingQ, they will like it and they will stay. The more people that stay, the better the community and the experience for all members.
Courses
With that in mind we created courses. You will now land on the Courses page when you login to LingQ. If you don't yet have a course, you will be asked to pick one from the list of Available Courses. If you already have a course or courses, your most recently opened course will be displayed.
In every language there will be one free Self-Directed Course as well as Directed courses which are offered by our tutors.
All existing members will already have the Self-Directed Course, containing all the lessons you currently have in your account. The Self-Directed Course is basically the old WorkDesk list. From here you can open your lessons and study them as before.
Directed Courses are identified by level and are made up of 12 lessons selected by the course tutor. Courses are 12 weeks long and include a writing assignment and a conversation each week as part of the lesson. Participants will be able to email their tutor anytime, will be answered on the Ask a Tutor forum and will receive monthly reports. Directed Courses can be bought with a credit card or with points. Directed Courses are a great way to commit to your learning for a specific period of time.
If you do sign up for a Directed Course, you can also have one or more other courses active at the same time including your Self-Directed Course.
Active Assignment Limits Removed, New Active LingQs Limit for Free Accounts
You will be happy to know that all assignment limits will be removed from LingQ. The only remaining limitation will be a 300 LingQ limit on Free accounts. This means that Free members will only be allowed to keep 300 LingQs in their accounts at any one time. If you hit your limit, you will have to either delete LingQs or upgrade. All Basic, Plus and Premium members may create unlimited LingQs in their accounts.
New 5 Steps for Each Lesson and Simplified Lesson Status
Following up on our theme of simplification, we have removed the old assignment page. In fact, we have removed all references to assignments and items. Now we only refer to lessons. Furthermore, we no longer have multiple statuses for each lesson; New, Open, Updated, Completed, Archived, etc.... Now your lessons are either in your active list or they are archived. You will see that you move them from active to archived or vice versa by simply ticking or unticking a tickbox.
In addition, for each lesson we now assign 5 Steps. These steps are visible on the right hand side of the Lesson page. These steps will help new members, and really, all members get more out of LingQ. Progress indicators show how many steps you have completed for each lesson.
Everyone can post questions on Ask a Tutor
We are also opening up the Ask a Tutor forum to all members. Now, Free and Basic members can also post questions here. Tutors will only be expected to answer questions from Plus and Premium members but I'm sure many of our members will be happy to answer each others questions as well.
New Navigation and a New User Interface
Finally, you will notice the new design and the new navigation. We think you're really going to like the new design which gives a more lively look to the site.
The navigation has been changed to make it simpler for the first time user. There are now two main tabs for Courses and Community. All other tabs are now in a sub menu that is visible once the main tab is opened. There will also be a Welcome tab that is visible when you first open your account. This page is there to help newbies but can be removed once you no longer find it useful.
We realize our existing members will have to get used to the new navigation. We did not do this to confuse you! Rather, we did it to make things more obvious for a newbie. Thanks for your patience and we think that once you are used to it, you will find it at least as convenient as the previous navigation.
We realize we haven't provided too many images of the new LingQ. We're just trying to build up suspense! :-) You'll see it all on November 20th!
As with all changes, we want your feedback. Let us know what you like and what you don't like. We will try to respond to frequent requests. And, of course, although we would hope that you won't find any bugs, please let us know if some squeak through!
