AN EXPERIMENT IN THE USE OF DRILL INSTRUCTORS IN LANGUAGE LABORATORIES

Abstract

The present paper is an attempt to describe and dis,cuss a type of language laboratory at the University of Michigan which is implemented somewhat differently from the conventional one. It employs dr i l l instructors, supervised pattern practice, and group repetition as well as the more customary adjunct of a tape recorder. The paper will begin with a brief account of general instruction methods in the language course and of the laboratory as it is utilized at present, and will conclude with some observations on improvements that seem to be indicated in the light of experience gained during the past six or seven months. The course is one in first-year Russian. It meets four hours each week. It is built around Cornyn's B e g i n n i n g Russ i a n , a textbook modelled in general on the materials used in the Intensive Language Program of the American Council of Learned Societies, but with certain improvements in the concentration of material by grammatical categories. The textbook, like most manuals of its type, employs for its earlier lessons a phonemic transcription, contains large amounts of set conversational materials for memorization, and, although representing a considerable improvement over most of the socalled army method texts in that it contains some rather well-planned grammatical exercises, must nevertheless be supplemented with a large number of additional materials for pattern practice and kindred exercises for the utilization of vocabulary within the morphological and syntactic categories under study. The creation of a special Russian language laboratory was partly intentional and partly accidental. The Slavic Department had long been eager to experiment with a form of laboratory period that would be somewhat more flexible than is possible during a compulsory half hour attendance at the