Educational screen & audio-visual guide (c1956-1971])

Re Language Teaching Pertinent to this discussion by Dr. Desberg is a story, "The New Media in Language Teaching," which appeared in the November issue of Audiovisual Instruction. Reprints of this story may be obtained by writing the magazine (Department of Audiovisual Instruction, National Education Assn., 1201 16th St., N.W., Washington 6, D. C). Cost is 35 cents per copy, and it is requested that cash orders accompany orders of less than one dollar. not entirely separable) then you have to have audiovisual. An ideal language course might well have three aids, then, for the teacher: audio, audiovisual, and books, each with specific utilizations. There has been much writing about electronic equipment, but unfortunately, there has been little doing, at least little that is solid. The first characteristic of the language laboratory, then, is its newness. But there are three other facts about language laboratories even more important. The first is the problem of time. The lab can increase the contact hours of the learner. If we calculate 180 days per school year with 45 minutes of language a day, except when there is a football rally, or the pupil is ill, or the teacher is ill, or a school-wide issue necessitates a special assembly, or there is a heavy snowfall, etc., we can figure more closely that the secondary school student gets 100 contact hours per year. To achieve professional competency, the student needs something more like 1000 contact hours in all, therefore a ten to twelve year language program. The second problem faced by the administrator is staff. A twelve year program represents three to six times as many teachers. Thus the lab can be of great help in the language area: the learner can practice on his own homework time, doubling or tripling the contact hours; he can also become cognizant of the variety of different voices and patterns that constitutes the second language by hearing many different voices not available to him in the present-day classroom. The third fact about the electronic classroom is its expense— ii measured in terms of initial outlay. The cost can be offset, however, in terms of a fourth characteristic, usefulness. The lab is amazingly helpful or can be, if properly utilized (for its mere presence does not make it work per se). The great problem is in the domain of materials and techniques : "there is an almost total lack of adequate teaching material."* This problem must be solved before we can even train teachers in how to use the electronic devices. In order to approach the problem correctly, we must take into account the limitations of the machine. The teacher can, but the equipment cannot: 1) correct the student, although the equipment can provide him with the correct answer, whicl is not the same thing; 2) talk with the student; 3) produce the total acoustic situation, but this i not a serious drawback, since we recognize Ian guage messages with less than total information 4) produce the total cultural situation; nothing can except living "in the language" and in a placi where it is spoken by monolinguals; here, by thi way, is where the visual devices will eventuall' have their day; 5) offer the same psychological reinforcement that a human teacher can. The equipment can: 1 ) provide a consistent model, whereas no speake can say exactly the same thing twice; 2) provide an authentic model, since most Ameri can teachers of French, for example, are neithe native speakers nor near-native speakers o French; 3) eliminate "correction emphasis," wherein an; speaker, correcting a mistake, will emphasize th mistake and replace the normal intonation am stress pattern with one which is reserved Jft schoolroom corrections; ^H 4) provide a variety of voices: men, womer younger and older people, regional dialects, an voices of outstanding contemporaries; 5) insure sufficient repetition and drill withoi tiring; the student may tire, of course, th teacher may also fall by the wayside, but th machine never stops until it is turned off; 6) maintain the pace of the authentic languaj without boasting of "French spoken at a spee that everyone can understand" — (except native); normal speed in language constitute' a different dialect from slow speech— the theoi that you learn a sentence slowly and then spet it up is totally invalid. Keeping in mind these qualities, there are on three things that can be done with tape recorder you can listen, you can repeat, and you can ansvc (transform). The audio thus lends itself readily follows to the following kinds of practice: Listening Repeating Answering Compre Pronunciation Grammar dri hension drills Vocabulary texts Sentence drills Testing memorizing * Purchase Guide, p. 265. Bearing in mind that the same possibilities exist audiovisual equipment, electronic devices can si plement the teacher in most areas involving thi three activities. Whichever the device, the goal in learning spe* is automaticity. A thoroughly trained learnert French should, when pricked with a pin, yell "a not "ouch." With electronic equipment we co travel that far. The vista ahead is marvelous. Altho' there have been wonderful teachers before there • s electronics, there can now be more wonderful teacl s and more wonderful learners, for electronics in te; ing and learning is here to stay. And it will be g( places— into every school in the country, I hope. 174 Educational Screen and Audiovisual Guide — April. ] 1