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

Student taking examination i n language laboratory where a room installation is used. Here the loudspeaker c a n b e used. However, this may be corrttteil by study on one's own and is not an insurmountable barrier by any means. Procrastination is one of the difficulties that must be overcome by the student in taking an oral course. No one checks to see that you go to the Audio Laboratory. This is a problem that the student used to day-to-day definite assignments must face. It was clear that the minor disadvantages were far outweighed by the advantages. The time spent in the laboratory by a beginning student ranges from three hours to seven to nine hours a week. Next, I spoke with two girls who are enrolled in the Intermediate course and who had both taken French in high school. Again, almost unqualified enthusiasm was shown for the oral method. One of the girls expressed a dislike for learning rules upon rules without application in a conventional French course. Because French is a living language, one that changes from day to day, she feels that the only way to learn it is by constant speaking. In doing this, you get a "feeling" for the language and you can "sen,se" when a sentence or expression sounds right. In other words, you are learning the language as little French children do, and as young .\merican children learn English — from hearing it and sensing its correctness. .Mr. Marty's use of contemporarv material was heartily praised. He teaches the most current usage and in his taped examples, uses the most frequently used expressions. In this French course, part of the listening material is taken from a Montreal ladio station's newscasts which were broadcast during the previous few days. In learning the language, the srutlents are also learning about the world and about the French people from the French people themselves. .According to both of the girls, the amount of time spent on the course, four hours a week of class and upwards from ten hours a week in the la bora tory, are minimized by the interesi and value of the course. Finally, I interviewed two students who are in their third year of French at Middlebury. They emphasized the value ol the oral courses and underscored the enthusiasm shown b, the other students interviewed. One student of Phonetics told me something about the course. In it they undertake the study of ihe history of the French language and the various dialects of France. .Mr. Marty utilives tapes recorded in France of actual French people speaking in difterent dialects. I was amused that in our discu^sion she could not think of the English word "dialect" and used instead the F'rench word "patois!" Both of these students thought that since the main purpose in studying a foreign language is usually to be able to converse in thai language that the oral method using tape recordings is by far the best approach. All of the students expressed their enthusiastic regard for the instructor and the instruction. Through the use of modern methods and materials the courses were made interestirg and challenging. They were made alive and real through the use of contemporary material and through teaching the way the French people are speaking their language TODAY. Janet S. Reed ii an eighteenyrur old freshman at Middlebury College. 22} Hat tell Snutlt. Middlebury, f'ermont. LISTENING (Continued from page 175) material than with hard material. Had the material employed in this study been even more difficult, it is possible that reading comprehension may have been shown to be superior for such material. .5. Boys are .superior to girls in comprehending the hard material in this studv. However, although this result may reflect a true difference between boys and girls on hard material, it may indicate only that the hard material contained more information of interest to boys than to girls. No definite conclusion on this point mav be drawn from the results of this study. f). Vaning the length of passages of storv tvpe material produces no apoarent differences in th'' abilitv to comprehend such passages. 7. The relationship between listening and reading comprehension does not appear to be altered by length of passage. 8. An increase in mental age and, to a lesser extent, chronological age decreases the difference between listening and reading comprehension. Fhe following recommendations were suggested based upon the finding of this study comparing listening and reading comprehension abilities of fourth and si;th grade pupils: 1. More attention should be given to oral presentation of subject matter materials with elementary school children, especially those wiih lower mental ages. 2. Comprehension of meaningful prose, as affected by length of passage, needs further study, particularlv with informational material. Such study might show that longer passages are more difficult to comprehend than short ones. 3. Further research is needed to discover whether boys actually surpass girls in the comprehension of difficult material, or whether the boys' superiority in this study may have been caused, instead, by the fact that the material was better suited to the interest of boys. ■1. The factor of interest in mate^rials should be the object of future research. Several studies, including this one, have implied that interest may be a more important factor in comprehension than the variables studied. EdScreen & AV Guide — April, 1958 17^