Learning to speak a new language can be one of the most exciting and rewarding challenges that a person can undertake—whether it is for personal enrichment, business or both. And when one is learning a language, having a friendly support group can be a huge benefit.

While many will practice their formative language skills by themselves and perhaps with the people they encounter on a daily basis, access to native speakers and cultural experts can be limited.

With social learning techniques, however, learning tasks becomes easier—without excessive time or travel cost. By combining new webcasting technologies with social networking, organizations can create virtual environments that leverage webcasting to help students learn and test language skills in a social, online environment that facilitates global connections for language learning and social media sharing.

These language “socials” feature access to native speakers and also give learners the ability to share study tips and techniques, as well as to learn about customs and etiquette around each language and culture.

A relevant use case is Rosetta Stone, Inc., one of the world’s best-known language-learning brands. The company has uniquely blended webcasting and social media tools to enrich the learning experience of its customers. Working with ON24 and its Webcast Elite product, Rosetta Stone has created a series of online “socials” where customers can gather and connect with native speakers of many languages, including English, Japanese, French, Italian, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese and German.

By giving students a social, online environment to try out their new language skills, Rosetta Stone is enhancing the learning experience and providing additional value above and beyond what comes in the company’s signature “yellow box.” According to the company, there is no better way to learn a foreign language—other than actually traveling to a foreign country, of course.

By providing learners with access to so many additional tools in the online environment, Rosetta Stone is using virtual learning to supplement its already fully-featured product, providing an immersive online language-learning program that combines online coursework and live interaction, native-speaking coaches and other learners.

With social learning webcasts, trainers serve a greater number of students by providing localized content and extra on-demand resources, including video, chat and social media sharing—students can share their learning experience with others via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.

In addition, with the deep reporting capabilities provided by leading webcasting platform providers, trainers are able to better understand learners in terms of demographics/geography and their preferences for content consumption, leading to ongoing process improvements in the programs that are offered to students.