Language laboratory teaching

Abstract

Summary In the favourable circumstances of highly competitive international political, economic and cultural conditions, thanks to the latest results of technology and science, the 60-years old teachers' reform movement has achieved a major break-through. The most important technical instrument of this success is the ‘greatest invention since the invention of the alphabet’, the tape recorder, and its extension in the language laboratory. Fortified by the new insights into the structure of language and the teaching/learning situation, progress after the initial skirmishes has been so rapid that long-term planning, including training and research, has not kept pace with the speed of developments. If one were to hazard a forecast at the future, one might say that within the next 2 years we shall see the emergence of a new criterion of the quality and suitability of the equipment, its life expectancy. This will impose new problems on manufacturers and may lead to the elimination of some types of equipment and the emergence of others on considerations of quality/cost ratio. As teachers and manufacturers gain experience, and as publishers of course material are drawn more closely into active participation, improved design and teaching material and methods will ensure the vitality of the language laboratory into the seventies and the maintenance of the market or its extension. In line with technical progress it seems likely that the traditional equipment will be supplanted thereafter by new audio-visual aids, capable of a greater measure of control, which already announce themselves. For all that, the continued domination of language teaching by the reform methods cannot be regarded as guaranteed as the challenge of new bottles for old wine is gaining momentum. At a time when language teaching is spreading into the primary school it seems worth recording that according to the movement's concepts the acquisition of the aural/oral skills by his students is the teacher's first task, and that it is the teacher who produces the teaching material or, through teaching method, puts it to use in the teaching aid.