Language Lab Design And Operation: Some Reflection
Language Lab Design and Operation: Some Reflections vishal bhadani
Lead In:
One of the best aspects of the ‘teaching-learning’ process is that it is happily humane; dynamic, heterogeneous and temporal. Pre-literate societies had successfully transmitted values, traditions and skills to the succeeding generations. But alas! The succeeding generations have advanced in the fields of ‘controlling’ and ‘systematic procedures’ which were the direct offshoots of renaissances philosophy of rationality in Western Civilization. Later, industrial revolution gave us a high scientific outlook of whatever we do and as a result new methods of understanding humans like Psychology, Anthropology, Linguistics etc. have emerged. These sciences prepared grounds …show more content…
Computer lab is not a language lab but computers can certainly be effective instruments in a language lab. With the advents of better audio-visual tools, computers can really work well to cater to the needs of language learners.
It is observed that in these kinds of language labs, readymade software have been installed and they are used religiously without customizing it as per the curriculum. Very assumptions with which such software are designed, have been unbelievably generalized; they aim at a very naïve understating of the process of language learning. Such software assume that learners can read, listen and understand English sentences and that is why all the instructions are provided in English only (Of course, they presume death of Grammar Translation Method but they have hurriedly conceived the birth of Functional Method!).
One can find grammatical exercises, listening practices, pronunciation practices, reading comprehension passages, writing exercises (that old fashioned LSRW, you know!)programmed on these software. Till date we do not have any software which is editable as per the needs of the learners and/or curriculum. They are poorly based on some grammatical units homogenously …show more content…
On teacher’s part, it has become a ritual. The very perception of a Language Lab being antithetical to classroom-teaching is a widely spread misconception. Both are complementary, needless to say. Some creative teachers ask students to search something on Google and that is where perhaps it once again becomes a computer lab. In rural areas, basic computer skills are missing so a Language Teacher is enthusiastically teaching computer skills too. Lab assistants are the much awaited persons in the language labs. In exceptional institutes, they recruit separate Lab assistants for language lab (if they have a separate language
Lead In:
One of the best aspects of the ‘teaching-learning’ process is that it is happily humane; dynamic, heterogeneous and temporal. Pre-literate societies had successfully transmitted values, traditions and skills to the succeeding generations. But alas! The succeeding generations have advanced in the fields of ‘controlling’ and ‘systematic procedures’ which were the direct offshoots of renaissances philosophy of rationality in Western Civilization. Later, industrial revolution gave us a high scientific outlook of whatever we do and as a result new methods of understanding humans like Psychology, Anthropology, Linguistics etc. have emerged. These sciences prepared grounds …show more content…
Computer lab is not a language lab but computers can certainly be effective instruments in a language lab. With the advents of better audio-visual tools, computers can really work well to cater to the needs of language learners.
It is observed that in these kinds of language labs, readymade software have been installed and they are used religiously without customizing it as per the curriculum. Very assumptions with which such software are designed, have been unbelievably generalized; they aim at a very naïve understating of the process of language learning. Such software assume that learners can read, listen and understand English sentences and that is why all the instructions are provided in English only (Of course, they presume death of Grammar Translation Method but they have hurriedly conceived the birth of Functional Method!).
One can find grammatical exercises, listening practices, pronunciation practices, reading comprehension passages, writing exercises (that old fashioned LSRW, you know!)programmed on these software. Till date we do not have any software which is editable as per the needs of the learners and/or curriculum. They are poorly based on some grammatical units homogenously …show more content…
On teacher’s part, it has become a ritual. The very perception of a Language Lab being antithetical to classroom-teaching is a widely spread misconception. Both are complementary, needless to say. Some creative teachers ask students to search something on Google and that is where perhaps it once again becomes a computer lab. In rural areas, basic computer skills are missing so a Language Teacher is enthusiastically teaching computer skills too. Lab assistants are the much awaited persons in the language labs. In exceptional institutes, they recruit separate Lab assistants for language lab (if they have a separate language