Relevance of a Digital Language Laboratory to the Teaching and Testing of Listening and Speaking Skills
By Atul Bansilal Patil
Over the past thirty years, the evolution of technology with rapid developments has changed our workplace, schools, colleges and society. It is hard to believe that as late as the 1980’s, the overhead projector was considered a progressive teaching tool. Every classroom was not equipped with ‘the latest’ tool. Today, not only are projectors standard in most classrooms, but in most colleges teachers can access computer laboratories. Only thirty years ago, we would have thought this as an impossible luxury. If we have seen these kinds of changes in the last three decades, what will the next three bring? How long will it be before every student has a laptop? Will every college have a wireless access as a standard across the campus? Along with changes in tools available for teachers, comes the challenge of learning how to integrate new technology into our teaching methods. Teachers of English have been so far unable to take the opportunities of existing and emerging technologies to a degree corresponding to their potential benefits. As educators, we must not only react to this change but be pro-active in order to prepare our students for the emerging knowledge based work-force and the challenges of a global economy. As teachers, we should believe that this requires the active use of new technology tools which can help to capture and sustain attention of a class. These also make teaching materials more engaging and effective. Use of effective audio-visual aids reduces monotony and helps teachers impart training with a learner-centric approach. This will ultimately, lead to collaborative learning which would motivate the learners to learn.
As technology advances, the role of the teachers to deliver and facilitate learning for their expectant ‘techno savvy’ students is to be in sync with existing and emerging technologies. Language teaching has utilized the technologies of the day from the slate to the paper and pencil, to tapes, to slides, to videos, etc. Beginning with the 1960s and the Grammar Translation method; technology-based teaching has gone through the audio-lingual movement; into emerging use of tape recorders, video tapes and up through the state-of-the-art Digital Language Laboratory (DLL). The use of DLL facilitates the process of learning a language to a great extent.
History of Language Laboratories
The history of the language laboratory can be divided into five periods:
- the period before it began: pre 1915,
- the period of its establishment until 1958,
- the developing period until the end of the 1960s,
- the diminishing period until the end of the 1970s, and
- the revival period that extends from the 1980s till today.
The origin of the language laboratory can be traced as far back as 1877, when Edison invented the tin foil phonograph. In the 1920s, radios were used for foreign language instruction. The practical use of language laboratories began in the 1950s, when tape recorders became popular for learning discreet linguistic units, which could be mastered through the mechanical process of repetitive drills. Studies by Keating, Lorge and Allen shed some light on certain aspects such as the relative merits of eagerness of pupils in a language laboratory class as opposed to a non-laboratory situation. Hutchinson and Lorge also cited cases of significant improvement with regard to audio-lingual skills. However, during the 1970s there was a rejection of language laboratories, since language acquisition theories changed towards communicative fluency rather than linguistic accuracy. In the 1980s a revival period began. Since then, language laboratories have been significantly improving and changing to aid new linguistic learning theories. The advent of the computer has led to laboratories having a digital base.
Capabilities of Digital Language Laboratory:
Traditional language laboratories have been supplemented by computer-assisted instruction and interactive media technologies. DLLs use computers to provide delivery of a wide range of material in digital format to the students. Through specialized programs, teachers can create their own exercises that fit individual classroom needs, add multimedia, and customize content. Computers also allow students to participate in national and international forums and networks, exchange ideas and information with other students and the better monitoring of their own progress. DLLs allow for “real time” conversation with each student or groups of students, with a wide variety of potential feedback mechanisms to the student, teacher, or other students. At the same time, digital laboratories also perform the same functions that language laboratories in the past were able to carry out, such as allowing students to record their voices and allowing teachers to control student positions.
There are some common problems faced by teachers such as teaching the students who are from different backgrounds, constantly monitoring individuals in class, creating individual lesson plans for students, motivating students for improvement. DLL offers solutions to these problems by allowing:
– lesson planning and broadcasting to different groups
– customized lessons creation (audio, video)
– communication with students through audio/video and text chat individually or in groups
– teaching all students using interactive teaching tools
– monitoring students
– reviewing student performance & so on
Thus, today, DLL occupies a position within the whole range of audiovisual media which is rather different from what it was a few decades ago. (tum-te-te-tum drills). On the contrary, it is also true that the potential of DLL is not fully exploited so far in teaching and testing of listening (aural) and speaking (oral) skills.
Teaching of listening and speaking skills:
It is common and accepted knowledge that the dexterous learning of a language cannot be a non-interactive process. Over the years, it has been noticed in various studies conducted, that languages are most easily adapted to when the learner understands basic phonetics and dialectics of a language through listening and speaking. Reading and writing undeniably play a pivotal role, but the greater contribution of learning through listening and speaking cannot be questioned. However, in the Indian education context, there is a neglect of listening and speaking skills. Traditionally, there has been a focus on the development of reading and writing skills The syllabus, right from class I, aims at reading and writing and, thus, fails to cater to the communicative needs of learners by preventing learners from gaining adequate practice. The potential of DLL to make an impact on the skills of listening and speaking is vast.
“Sound brings language to life and life to language“.
Listening is the basis of language learning and excellence in listening is an essential requirement for effective communication. Listening to the correct way a language is spoken and spoken in a way in which the listener acknowledges its correctness is paramount to the process of language learning. DLL offers a remarkable platform to practise and enhance listening skills. The audio assisted laboratory is a virtual mini-media unit with the hookup of a special tape recorder to the computer interactive audio providing multiple possibilities for teachers to teach. A printed screen comes alive with sound for the acquisition of listening skills. This highly sophisticated environment induces the student to focus on his ability to listen first, then to comprehend, and then to be able to utilize this comprehension in order to set up a rudimentary communication process. Later on, mimicking the speaker, or better still, mimicking the grammar of the speaker, the listener can easily attune himself to the flow of language. Interactive Videodisc programmes can provide excellent listening comprehension activities. Depending on the language level, students listen in order to pinpoint the main idea or just a segment, or they listen for specific facts. In any lesson, the learner can listen, repeat and record. This follows the pattern: Stimulus- Response- Feedback: a pattern advocated by structural methodologists.
Any audio clip can be sent across for the whole class or a particular group. Students can play, replay as often as necessary until they are satisfied that they have thoroughly understood it or, in the case of pronunciation drills, until they are able to approximate the model. A teacher, meanwhile, can serve as a monitor, listen to any student, correct pronunciation errors, answer questions and provide answer keys to exercises. Through such activities, a teacher can introduce students to phonetics, speech sounds, intonation, stress and rhythm. ‘The Self-access, Self-study listening library’ stored on the teacher’s computer can easily be made available to students. It provides a student the facility to practise and assess his/her own performance.
Listening and understanding the target language is not sufficient. Speaking the language is the main aim of most language learners. To develop this productive skill, dialogues can be effectively used. Use of an interactive audio programme allows students to create dialogues and to practise them with other students. Use of videos also plays an important role. The videos can be controlled (stopped, paused and replayed) and they can be presented to a group of students, to individuals. It allows learners to see lip movements, facial expressions and body language at the same time as they hear stress, intonation and rhythm of the target language. DLL also allows students to practise with interactive exercises in word accent, pace, speech stress, intonation, improve their speech and reduce mother tongue influence through use of phonetic lessons, record his/her pronunciation and compare with the pre-recorded trainer pronunciation. The voices of many native speakers can be presented. They can present an invariable model for tasks involving repetition, for instance, in pronunciation correction, resolving difficulties in understanding spoken texts, and providing feedback in pattern drills. The teacher can also use the facility of voice recording which makes it possible to check learner’s utterances, which allows a certain degree of objectiveness in testing and evaluation to be achieved. The recorded utterances are automatically saved and are available for later use; for instance, for subsequent evaluation by external judges.
Testing of listening and speaking skills:
From a practical perspective, testing is a critical area in language education, as results of testing often influence the future of learners, the professional evaluation of instructors and the direction of curriculum design. ‘How much’ of the skill has been acquired by a learner needs to be tested. A test is a procedure for measuring ability, knowledge or performance. One of the main tasks of any educational institution and its teachers is to measure the growth of language acquisition and learning with reference to particular students and / or the whole group. The obvious response is through valid, reliable tests that can show how a learner’s language has developed through a sequence of language study. DLL offers tools to carry out different assignments in testing and finally creating exploratory and dynamic learning environments. With the help of various features of DLL a teacher can:
– create questions and reach out to all students
– assign the time for the test
– create 6-8 types of questions in a single exam sheet
– create the answer key, it will automatically evaluate
– create customized materials for the classroom with the help of Authoring programmes.
Summative or formative evaluations can be done through DLL. One can also test before a programme commences. Computer Based Tests (CBTs) are used to determine initial levels of proficiency of learners who wish to enrol for a particular course in order to be able to assign them to elementary, intermediate or advanced level groups. These kind of tests help avoid time-consuming administrative procedures, scoring methods and reporting policies. Automation of assessment in DLL allows colleges to accurately assess and place new students in minutes and save time. A database is created which allows colleges to conduct research necessary in defining cut-off scores, an important process to ensure that students are placed at their most appropriate level. Statistical reports can easily be generated from the database.
To check the learners’ linguistic competence in listening, the test may include auditory identification and sound discrimination, e.g. identification of sounds, discrimination of foreign sounds, discrimination of English sounds, implicit discrimination, intonation, stress and accent. Apart from this, one can also use songs in the laboratory. A very simple exercise is to do a gap-fill. Choose a song and provide the students with a worksheet with the lyrics, with some words omitted. The students then listen to the song and try to fill in the missing words. The advantage of using a language laboratory is that the students can work at their own speed. It also allows a teacher to provide different exercises for different levels in the class. For instance, a worksheet with more words missing for higher level students can be designed. A little thought, however, does need to go into the choice of the song, the words to be deleted and the tasks to be done before and after. Time limit also needs to be set. This becomes a productive and enjoyable activity for the students.
Testing speaking often poses a peculiar challenge for teachers. The most common approach to rating students’ speaking proficiency is through an interview format rated according to predetermined criteria. Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) can easily be conducted in DLL individually or in the form of a group discussion. A teacher is an authorised person to start or to end a GD at anytime. Control over students can also be maintained. A teacher can add multiple students in the discussion, control the group real time, disconnect an unwanted speaker, can pause or resume a student at any time.
In order to check linguistic competence in speaking, students can be instructed to listen to an audio speech and record the same in the students’ voice. Both the voices then can be compared by the computer. To check communicative competence in speaking, the function of video conferencing can be used- students could be asked to create something and get it recorded in the disk for further discussion. For instance, one student takes the role of a Personal Manager, and another student pretends to be a job applicant. The manager conducts the interview. Every thing is recorded with a camera, and the recording is shown to the whole class later, which can proceed with a discussion about the language used. We can go even further by discussing the non-verbal communication caught by the camera. This should be interesting to the students. The teacher may analyse their recordings and look for their strengths and weaknesses with respect to accuracy, fluency, interactions, etc.
DLL having access to the internet opens up new opportunities for language learning and testing, with the World Wide Web providing access to easy opportunities to create, present or reuse existing content. The simplicity of blogging and the popularity of sites like YouTube / TeacherTube have resulted in a huge growth in user-generated content, a boon for language teachers looking for additional materials for learners such as practice exercises, tutorials, games, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, manuals, texts, videos, images, pod casts, news, documents, comics and so on. With the help of internet, the teacher can not only publish and deliver interactive, multimedia activities but can also offer a tool for mobile teaching and testing. Students from any part of the world can, therefore, network their home computers to the school computers and become citizens of a digital global village.
This concludes my overview of how a digital language laboratory can be used, not as a substitute for a teacher, but as a supporting aid. Availability of the tool is one thing: effective utilization of it is another. The role of the digital language laboratories will only develop with the progress of research and training because it is not the technology but the pedagogical use of technology that determines the effectiveness of the digital language laboratory.
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References:
Raymond F. Keating, Study of the Effectiveness of Language Laboratories (New York: The Institute of Administrative Research, 1963)
J. C. Hutchinson, “Language Laboratory: How Effective Is It?” School Life (January, 1964), pg. 14-17
Van Els, T.; Bongaerts, T.; Extra, G.; Van Os C and Van Dieten (1984), “Applied Linguistics and the Learning and Teaching of Foreign Languages”, Edward Arnold, USA
Websites:
Raymond F. Keating, Study of the Effectiveness of Language Laboratories (New York: The Institute of Administrative Research, 1963); Sarah Lorge, “Foreign Language Laboratories in Secondary Schools, “A-V Learning (Board of Education of the City of New York), Vol-8 (October-November, 1963)
J. C. Hutchinson, “Language Laboratory: How Effective Is It?” School Life (January, 1964), pp. 14-17; & Lorge loc. Cit.
thank you Mr. Patil for such an informative and though provoking article on use of DLL in teaching of english skills. In fact technology is like a teaching aide, helping a teacher in making teaching-learning more effective.
regards
RAVI BHUSHAN