I recently came across an interview on the Livemoha Blog about the shift that is happening, effectively moving the journey of language learning away from the classroom and onto the internet.  I guess I would qualify this by saying that you can build a pretty great foundation in a language with many of the excellent opportunities that can be found online.  In fact, the highly motivated learner could really get pretty fluent with the language in the confines of their own home.  But that is not why we learn languages, so we can hang out at home.  We learn them to communicate, to enter into the heart language of another culture and by doing so open up a whole new world to our own lives.  We learn language so that we can go out and enter into the culture and life of our neighbors in the world.  And to really move beyond just the foundation, we have to get out their into the community, into the lives of the those who speak the language we are learning.Anyway, it was an interesting interview even if it was a bit promotional.