As language lab occupies the most prominent place among the technological aids in Language Teaching. Basically it aims to enhance proficiency in linguistic skills (speaking, listening & reading) through its emphasis on-new items of vocabulary, activity based learning, grammar in context & fluency in conversations.

Emerging technologies make it practical to approach learning in ways that have been advocated by scientists, theorists, and educational psychologists for years.  Advanced information technologies such as virtual reality, visualization, digital modeling, digitization, simulation, games, virtual worlds and intelligent one-on-one tutoring systems dramatically enhance teaching and learning of elusive concepts by translating abstractions into real-world contexts and providing customized instruction and individualized assessments.

Objectives:

1. To maintain a good linguistic competence- through accuracy in grammar, pronunciation & vocabulary.

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2. To develop pragmatic competence, to understand the grammatical form & function & scale of formality.

3. To enrich the discourse competence, to prepare the learner to be able to produce contextualize written text and speech.

4. To acquire strategic competence to use both spoken & written language to use in a wide range of communication strategies.

5. To realize the full potential of this technology and to ensure its pervasiveness in all institutions of learning and training.

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6. Pedagogy of learning through technology

7. Assimilating what has been learned

These are generally guided exercises. They are used to help students assimilate grammatical and lexical structures, as well as phonetics. They consist of the following:

i. Repetition Exercises  (Word Pronunciation, Sentence Pronunciation). 

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ii. Substitution / Transformation Exercises (Sentence Practice, Grammar Practice).

iii. Putting the rules into practice

iv. These are guided exercises. Their objective is to highlight specific functional components within a language:

v. Reflection on the organization of sentence components (word order).

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vi. Use of vocabulary and grammar in fill-in-the-blanks exercises, which require students to analyze a sentence in its entirety in order to place the correct word (The Right Word, Fill-in-the-Blanks).

vii. Vocabulary practice with association exercises, which consist of matching a word with its synonym, antonym or a related image (Word Association, Picture / Word Association).

viii. Reflection on vocabulary or grammar using texts or lexical groups, in which students must identify words belonging to a specific grammatical or lexical group (Words and Functions, Words and Topics).

Strategies of Teaching/Learning:

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Learner can respond at ease for communicative mode of teaching. Communicative method for learning languages combines extensive, high-quality content with flexible and interactive multimedia technology. This comprehensive language-learning method can act as a total solution for self-teaching, as well as a teaching support to formal courses. Through a wide range of activities, a variety of skills are aimed to develop in a learner. A learner needs to communicate: oral and written comprehension, as well as oral and written expression. It also addresses the concepts of grammar, lexicon, phonetics and conjugation. Language lab may have the following objectives, purposes, functions to work upon.
The various dialogues and videos, which illustrate everyday and professional life.
In line with current pedagogical trends, familiarizing students with the voicing of the language using recordings made by native speakers.

Subsequently, students will address concepts of grammar, lexicon, phonetics and conjugation they have previously met in context, allowing them to understand and retain these notions.

Essentials elements for the acquisition of vocabulary:

1) The primary form of linguistic communication is speech and so listening is the most important receptive (and learning) skill for foreign language students. An ability to listen and interpret many shades of meaning from what is heard, is a fundamental communicative ability. Teaching listening involves training in some ‘enabling skills’ perception of sounds, stress, intonation patterns, accents, attitudes and so on, as well as ‘practice’ in various styles of listening comprehension.

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2) Accurate perception of the sounds of the language is the first stage which leads to interpretation and comprehension. When listening to a foreign language, we need to know the sounds, rhythms, tunes and stress patterns of that language. All the pronunciation work which we do will benefit the students’ listening ability.

3) Phonetics: The sounds of the English language can be written down using the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) which is used in all Longman dictionaries. Use of minimal pair perception exercises (ship/sheep, ten /then) helps students learn the sounds of English. It can be well practiced on pronunciation exercises with the help of software or by using CDs in language lab.

4) Interpretation: We listen to interpret meaning. Most of the exercises which students will do focus on listening comprehension, which is, interpreting meaning from spoken language.

5) Listening to words: In written language, there are convenient white spaces between words. Whereas spoken language is a continuous stream of sound. The learner has to pay attention to understand the meaning of words spoken.

6) Usage of language laboratory: Earphones and headphones deliver undistorted sound directly to the ears. It is better practiced in a language laboratory with the help of head phones and earphones; this provides ideal conditions for intensive listening.

7) Pre-teach difficult vocabulary: Teaching isolated and meaningless lists of words and phrases is probably not a good idea. Teachers may choose to introduce the setting before the students listen. This provides an opportunity to elicit or introduce and explain the sort of language we might hear in that setting. This language is listed on the board and students listen and mark what they actually heard.

The key to learning a language is the frequent exposure and use of vocabulary and grammar. The average person must be exposed to a word or phrase 100s of times before integrating it into fluent conversation. Language learning software provides teachers with a number of methods for evaluating students’ performance and tracking their progress. By using writing, listening, recorded and Web-based activities to stimulate learners to make use of their growing oral and written language skills, store results for comparison over time, so the teacher/learner can measure progress. Among the four macro skills of language learning, listening and reading are receptive skills whereas speaking and writing are the productive skills. These skills can be improved effectively, when the learner learns at his own pace.

In Mangalayatan University we are extending our services to 100 students of various institutes. 66 students of the previous batch of IER have been trained through Lingua phone method (Listen—Understand–Speak). It is the world’s best English Curriculum and the world’s best voice recognition technology. The students are supposed to complete four levels of Lingua phone with Eye speak software.

These four levels will help the students in manipulating English exactly, effectively and properly. There are four units in each level consisting 26-27 activities in each unit where the students will be presented the grammar patterns and the different ways to use what they have learned and practice the new language in various types of activities. The emphasis will be given on 120 speaking exercises  and vocabulary of 2500 words for all kind of situations , to give students fluency of expression, clarity in pronunciation & phonetic exercises(vowel & consonant sounds) enable students to speak like a native speaker. At the end, there is an Evaluation report. It will focus on Pitch, Timing, Pronunciation, Loudness so that over all clarity in English keeps getting better.

Regular tests will help to check the progress. Upon completion of the course, the students will get the Lingua phone certificate.  Actually the basic aim of the teachers of language lab is to improve all the aspects of students’ language proficiency on- and off-campus. I had conducted a proficiency test on my students in language lab. I had evolved about 60 students for the test and they were in their last semester of B.Tech. When they joined the lab ,they were not as good as they should be. They are to learn through Lingua phone software in which first they see the words sentences, then they understand and at last they will have a command over the sentences, pronunciation ,accent, stress and vocabulary.  In the beginning most of them had difficulty in pronunciation like /s/ and /sh/ sound,  /dj/ and /z/ sounds. They have 4 levels and I had conducted the test after first level.

In first level they have words and short conversations based on their daily activities like going to a doctor, market, movie, names of all the countries etc. I asked them to pronounce the word for 2/3 times in which they had difficulty. And I also asked them to make some new words from the words given in their computers and make them in their own sentences. To a larger extent they were successful and it was really my FEEDBACK from my students. They did well up to 70%.  So I can say that definitely language lab makes a great difference in learning English and enriching vocabulary. It is true that we can’t put the utility of language lab aside.

Language lab helps to:

i. Improve your overall classroom performance 

ii. Learn English as a second language (ESL) 

iii. Increase your hands-on exposure to the language you are studying 

iv. Enrich your language skills before you go abroad 

v. Record your voice, compare it to that of a native speaker and save the recording to listen again and again. 

vi. Mastery over the words, pronunciation until the students get satisfaction if they want to hear a particular word again, they can. 

vii. Build the confidence using English and speak more spontaneously. 

viii. Experiencing talking to ‘real’ native speakers and learn to understand English accents from all over the world. 

ix. Build a social network of English speaking friends-become part of an English speaking community. 

x. Practice everyday English: English for shopping, eating out, staying at hotels, going to an airport, restaurant, renting accommodation, using banking & postal services etc. 

xi. If you are not a talkative person, don’t worry- you can improve your listening skills until you are ready to speak. 

xii. Call for help when you need it.

Conclusion:

There is always scope for improvement and advancement in any field and for any subject. It has to be accomplished with commitment and enthusiasm. We are habituated to the traditional teaching methods. It is high time that our teaching methods have to undergo a change. Unless the new technology is adopted in English language  teaching.

We cannot impart language skills in our learners at the rate of growing competition. Nelson Brooks writes, “The language laboratory can be effective in learning, not in terms of the dual native of effective in learning behavior-a friendly chat with a machine is still quite a distance in the future but rather in terms of the repetition  and over learning of behavior patterns that are to become habitual. According to my view, the language laboratory has been found to be very fruitful in terms of language learning and teaching.

References:

1- Use of Language Lab in English language learning/teaching, Dec 31 (2009)

2- Teaching English with Technology ELT Oxford Journal The Asian ESP Journal Reflections on English Language Teaching Language Teaching Quarterly

3- Materials from Lingua phone software.

4- Paliwal, AK (2008) Teaching of English.

Acquisition  of  Vocabulary; Proficiency  in  Pronunciation through  Language  laboratory
(conducted  a test on the students of B.tech VIII semester of Mangalayatan University, Aligarh (UP)

Dr. Garima Sharma
Lecturer,  Communication Skills
In charge-Language Lab
Mangalayatan University, Aligarh(UP)
Email- garimasharma0011-at-gmail

Mrs. Preeti Sharma
Thesis submitted, AMU in English
Language Teaching
Dubai