--- Forwarded Message from "Patricia Early" <[log in to unmask]> --- >Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 14:10:12 -0400 >From: "Patricia Early" <[log in to unmask]> >To: <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Re: #7684 designing a language learning center from scratch Oddly enough, what seems to be keeping the interest of our students at Georgia State is not the technology that we offer, but the LARC staff and the individual student support we offer. We have a 35-position Sanako lab, with media server and recording tools, and we work hard at identifying emergent instructional media tools and making them available to our students. But you are right: for the most part what we are doing with the technology in the LARC will soon be available to individual students at home or from other labs. What is not available at home or via remote access is learning support. We offer walk-in tutoring at GSU in 7 languages, as well as a quiet place to study and a room full of language resources to help them. Many students come in just to do their homework in an environment where they know they can have an occaisional question answered. Others come in to study in groups. Another thing we've worked on is hiring primarily language students, graduate and undergraduate, to work in the LARC so that we can offer insight into effective study techniques, best resources, and "sympathy" in general for the specific needs of language students. What we've found is that the 1800 language students who utilize the LARC each semester appreciate the personal communication and "low-tech" aspects of our "high-tech" language center. We hear many positive comments about how our center and the language department provide support that students often find lacking in other areas of the university. I have found that students come in for assistance from our people, and then also use the technology as they need it. Our hours of usage in both tutoring and technology use continue to rise each semester. In conclusion, I do not think that specific technologies will be enough to differentiate the Language Learning Center from other computer labs and draw students into the center; specialized Language student support will. In this age of more technology access but less personal contact, the student support we offer has become more valuable than our computer resources. So, if I were going to start from scratch, I would add more space for tutoring and group studying, and devote more resources to hiring and training more student staff for support in these areas. One thing I would like to add to our language center would be a "lounge" area for watching international television in groups, and perhaps having social hours where students could come in and visit with each other in the target language. These are the kind of "human resources" that cannot be accessed from home or in a general purpose computer lab. Patricia Early Language Lab Coordinator Georgia State University >>> [log in to unmask] 10/29/04 01:30PM >>> --- Forwarded Message from David Weible <[log in to unmask]> --- >To: [log in to unmask] >From: David Weible <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: designing a language learning center from scratch >Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:01:47 -0500 I know this topic has come up in the past -- repeatedly, if I'm not mistaken. But that was then and this is now. It seems to me that the proliferation of ancillary CD-ROMs accompanying text books and web-based instructional materials, not to mention other internet resources have all weakened certain aspects of traditional language lab functions. Trying to project these trends into the future, what do you see to be the strengths now (and tomorrow) of instructional technology in foreign language learning. To put it another way, if you were starting from scratch, what are the component elements of such a unit which you would regard as essential and/or highly desirable. In particular, what can and should be provided by such a unit which would not already be available in a computer lab, or, for that matter, on one's own home computer? Among other possibilities, how do you feel about: live foreign language audio, video speech recognition speech evaluation (programs which attempt to compare a learner's pronunciation to a given model on demand use by individual students use by classes locally developed CALL materials use for second language acquisition research purposes (important to us) Any and all feedback on this will be greatly appreciated. Thanks, David Weible Associate Professor and Acting Head Department of Germanic Studies (MC 189) University of Illinois at Chicago Room 1530, University Hall 601 S. Morgan St. Chicago, IL 60607-7115 Tel: 312-996-3205, Fax 312-413-2377 www.german.uic.edu