The Positive Benefits of Using a Language Lab/Reading Lab in the Language Learning, ESL and Remedial Reading Classroom

The use of a modern language lab or reading lab system will allow the students to learn any language or improve their own reading and speaking skills and develop their own native language comprehension at an accelerated rate.

Listening skills are primary in becoming fluent. Even Level II language labs (the simplest type of system) help develop listening skills, allowing the students to focus on the spoken word and therefore enhancing their ability to repeat and understand the spoken language.

In a lab setting the students can be subdivided into small groups to either listen and respond to the instructor's program material or interact with each other in conversational exercises. There are many types of exercises and activities that can be developed by instructors for both mainstream and special needs. There is a wealth of new CD-Rom programs that are meant to supplement the language lab and it's intensive use rather than replace it. The modernization of language labs over the last decade has ensured both increased reliability and new functionality to a level hitherto unattained.

The ability of each student to speak at the same time and yet be audibly isolated from each other allows efficient use of time and a higher degree of practice and learning. All of the students can practice simultaneously (rather than one at a time) thus increasing the student's actual practice and fluency ultimately manifesting themselves in higher grades.

A Level II system with a recording cabinet installed allows each student to practice both interactively and independently with their own digital audio file, which they can take home for later study. The instructor can also allow the students to practice for AP tests and make up compressed answer CD's (whereby only a student's answers are recorded for later evaluation). Any student digital recording can be archived for later evaluation.

The following characteristics/benefits apply to language lab/reading lab systems:

· Acoustics: The language lab provides all students no matter where they are seated in the room with equal opportunity to hear the instructor and to be heard by the instructor. Each student can listen to the lesson material at a level set by themselves for their own comfort. None of the lesson material is unheard due to the direct nature of the sound transmission heard by each student via his or her individual headset.

· Privacy: The headset/microphone provides students with a psychological privacy that promotes their speaking ability. It reduces the inhibitions felt in normal classroom situations and encourages the shy student to speak. The instructor can talk to a single or group of students in privacy without disturbing the rest of the class.

· Attention: As the language lab allows the student to listen to the program stimulus individually, each individual student's attention is focused on the program material being studied, ultimately increasing the attention span of the student and teaching the student to listen and analyze the content of the lesson.

· Individualization: Even in labs that are not provided with digital recording capability, the equipment usually provides the capability for dividing the class into several groups. These groups can be listening to different programs on varying subject matters and at different levels of inter-activity.

· Developing Listening Skills: Listening skills are an essential element in becoming linguistically fluent. The language lab helps students develop good listening skills and aids the process of communication. Students hear the correct language patterns all the time through their headsets instead of mimicking other students who may be pronouncing incorrectly.

· Self-Pacing: In a Level II language lab that is provided with a digital audio recorder testing cabinet the students may work through the lesson material at a pace suited to their ability. The lab is for them a personal tutor. Students can take a CD home for later study.

· Library Study: For those schools capable of providing open lab hours, the students have the opportunity to spend extra time practicing, listening and speaking.

· Native Speaker / Different Voices: The lab provides students with a variety of model voices rather than just the voice of the teacher, who is often not a native speaker. All modern systems have a Model Voice feature allowing a native speaker to converse and be used as model voice subject for the rest of the class.

· Excitement: Students become excited when using learning lab systems. The student's attention is heightened and the boredom of repetitive learning is lifted. Students will complain if the lab lesson is canceled due to public holidays, etc.

· Efficiency: The teacher can monitor individual students (and talk to them) much more efficiently than in a regular classroom. Usually in a regular classroom all other students stop speaking when the teacher communicates with an individual student. In a lab they will continue working without interruption. Also, a teacher can interact with many more students since he/she merely presses a mouse key or touches a button in order to be in contact with a student. The language lab makes most efficient use of time, improving the teacher/student time ratio and allowing the instructor to maximize the use of time in a given lesson. In a single teaching session individual students can have more opportunity to speak than during an entire semester in an average class of 30 students.

· Variety: The language lab provides variety from regular classroom situations. The teacher's role is changed and the students are more active for longer periods of time. The use of visual stimulus coupled with selective audio materials increases the attention span of the students.

· Improved Discipline: The instructor can improve the discipline of the class by privately conversing with individual students who are being objectionable. By utilizing a system of seat management, any equipment faults or acts of minor vandalism can be reported by the next students entering the booth. If not reported by the student, they become the target of the investigation when the next student enters the booth. Students have great difficulty talking to each other when wearing headsets (unless they are in pair or group conference mode).

· Record/Comparing: In a Level II lab where each student position is connected to a computer the students have the ability to record their own voices along with the master stimulus. Each student can be working interactively on different segments within the same program or be working with completely different program material.

· Simplify Record Keeping: This allows the instructor to easily generate records of attendance, grading and oral responses to true/false or multiple-choice tests. An automated record keeping process can save much time.

· Jeopardy Testing: All modern systems offer each student a way of attracting the attention of the instructor as the need arises.

· Oral Testing: Oral test features allow instructors to test students with a question or stimulus and only record the student's answer. The instructor places the student's computer into record mode after the instructor's test question has been given. The instructor can stop the student recording when the next question is to be played or spoken to the student. Instructors who later play the student recordings can easily mark the students work, which is made up of only the responses given by the student.

· Oral Test Archiving: Tapes generated by the test system are ideal for archiving and further long-term reference by instructors and school administrators.

· Teacher Monitoring: Since the teacher is not concentrating on producing the next question or drill, he/she can concentrate more on the student responses. The instructor has more time to produce materials and oversee class activities due to the automatic rather than manually controlled instructor console features.

· Role Playing Exercises: Using the random pairing/random-grouping feature that all advanced modern learning systems incorporate, instructors can generate a variety of exercises structured around role-playing. Students can be paired or grouped together in small numbers and hold conversational practice with each other. Due to the random selection of student partners the students interest level is always high in anticipation of who their paired partner is likely to be. The instructor can also allow the students to practice with each other while responding to the master stimulus.

· Practice Materials: Any student digital recording produced in the language lab can be replayed on any computer with a CD Drive or Network access. Students can take CD's home from the lab and listen to both the instructor stimulus and their own recorded responses. Instructors can take CD's home from the lab for later grading. CD's can hold 10 hours of recordings from the Language Lab.