“The Harvard Language Exchange: Toward Community-focused Informal Language Learning” with Dr. Andrew Ross and Dr. Mary DiSalvo

The Language Exchange began in the Fall of 2019 as a simple idea: to match members of the Harvard community, broadly conceived, who wanted to exchange language practice. Using a Google form and shared spreadsheet, the Harvard Language Center staff began to grow a modest list of users. When COVID forced Harvard to turn to remote instruction and then online teaching and learning, we recognized the importance of the Language Exchange as a community-building tool. With the design support and technical expertise of Harvard IT, they have recently launched a new purpose-built Language Exchange site, which currently has over 300 users.

In this presentation, the guest speakers will outline the needs case for informal language learning opportunities, describe the history of the project, show the site from user and administrator perspectives, and offer some thoughts on the potential impact of this platform for community-building across a widely varying population of users.