Do you think tools provided by penpag-gate, livemocha etc are good ?

What do you think about tools provided by websites where you can exchange languages like penpal-gate, livemocha, palabela, babbel, italki, sharetalk etc ? I mean about the efficiency and the quality of the free lessons, podcasts, dictionaries, classes, vocabulary cards, textual and vocals chats etc. I would like to get critical opinions about those materials and your advice about the more useful part of this system, is it to talk to native speakers, to have the possibility to get texts corrected by natives. I would be glad to get opinions of teachers or didacticians. I’m just a student and a language lover who need to get a better understanding of the subject.

Thanks by advance.

If I were to compare penpal-gate.net and livemocha I could say that livemocha is based more on lesson-learning whereas penpa;-gate.net emphasizes on the feature of a community where you can make friendships apart from learning foreign language.

As for me, talking with natives is definitely the best method of learning a new language, or improving it.

Hope you have a good time here.