For language teachers
Reign for language teachers. Language learning community.
Language teachers run Italki + Discord + Anki - learners drop off because no single home, no recurring habit, conversation partners scattered.
Reign + Learnomy + BuddyNext hosts vocabulary drills, conversation practice groups and a learner community with partners matched by level. Both plugins install free; LearnDash and BuddyPress are the alternatives.
Drills, the learner community and streak badges, free to install. You buy the Reign theme; Learnomy, BuddyNext and WB Gamification are ours and install free.
- Learnomy courses
- BuddyNext community engine
- WB Gamification points and badges
Three highlights for language teachers.
- 01
Conversation partner matching via BuddyNext profile fields (level and target language).
- 02
Daily vocabulary review streaks via WB Gamification, free to install (GamiPress if you already run it).
- 03
Live practice rooms scheduled in Eventonomy, free to install, or The Events Calendar.
What the site looks like on day one.
You launch with levelled courses, a conversation space and a class calendar. Lessons hold the grammar and vocabulary, the community is where learners practise in the target language, and events are the live conversation sessions. The conversation space is the whole point: language learners need somewhere low-stakes to make mistakes, and a comment box on a lesson is not it.
What a member actually does.
A learner joins at a level, works through lessons, and lurks in the conversation space for a while because posting in a new language is frightening. Getting them to post once is the job. After that they tend to keep going, and by a few months in the regulars are correcting each other gently, which is both good practice and the thing that makes the community self-sustaining rather than dependent on you.
How this usually makes money.
The usual shape is a monthly membership from $15 to $50 covering lessons and the conversation space, with live classes either included at higher tiers or sold separately. One-to-one lessons book through a scheduling plugin. The recurring membership is what makes this work, because language learning is a long project and a course sold once does not match how people actually learn.
The mistake to avoid.
Expecting learners to start talking unprompted. Posting in a language you are learning is frightening, so an unseeded conversation space stays silent and then dies. Prompt daily for the first month and answer your own prompts if you have to, until the regulars take over.
Language teacher-specific questions.
How is this different from Italki?
Italki is a teacher marketplace. WP Sell Services, free to install, lets you be the marketplace operator charging a commission instead of competing on someone else.
Can I run a level-test on signup?
Yes. Learnomy quizzes route students to the right starter course based on score; LearnDash quizzes do the same.
Can I organise learners by level?
Yes, with a group or space per level and membership tiers or manual assignment controlling who sees what. Keeping beginners and advanced learners apart matters more in language communities than in most, because a beginner watching fluent conversation usually goes quiet rather than joining in.
How do I encourage people to actually post?
Give them something low-stakes and specific: a weekly prompt, a question of the day, a thread where mistakes are explicitly fine. Seed it yourself for the first month. Communities that wait for learners to start talking unprompted generally wait a long time.
Should the community be in the target language?
Mostly, with a space where English or the native language is allowed for the questions people cannot yet ask. Forcing full immersion silences beginners; allowing anything removes the practice. A clearly marked space for each works better than a single rule.
Can I teach several languages on one site?
Yes, a course tree and a group per language, with membership tiers controlling access. One site, one login. Keep the communities separate, because a learner who lands in the wrong language conversation usually leaves rather than asking.
Buy the theme. Add the plugins free.
Learnomy, BuddyNext and WB Gamification cost nothing to install, and each has its own Pro plan for later. Running the third-party stack instead? The LearnMate LearnDash kit is the packaged route. Or have the Wbcom team install either one for $699 flat.