In 1961 the University of Michigan published in the Language Laboratory
Technical Report #12 an article by this author entitled "The
Electronic Study Center." Outlined in this article were the reasons
and methodology for expanding the ordinary language laboratory into
an installation which would serve as a teaching aid for all subjects.
The term "electronic study center" is rather cumbersome, and since
I am addressing a group which is library -oriented, I shall refer to
the same concept in this report as the "audio-library."
In preparing this report for an institute sponsored by a school of
library science, one of my major endeavors has been to try to see
the problems involved through the eyes of the librarian. Being woefully
ignorant of those finer points of library science which go beyond
the Dewey Decimal System and the card catalog, I hope I have not
oversimplified or overlooked too many all-important details.
Most universities, colleges, high schools, and quite a few junior
high schools have installed language laboratories. These installations
are being used with varying amounts of success by foreign language
teachers as a tool for teaching the spoken foreign language. Quite
naturally, these language laboratories are controlled by, and under
the direction of, the language teachers. At this time I should like to
question seriously the wisdom of having these installations under the
control of the foreign language department in the respective schools.
I believe, rather, that that collection of teaching aids and the concepts
which we at present call the language laboratory should be
viewed as one of the several components of a modern well-equipped
library and so operated.published or submitted for publicatio

Regenstreif, Harry

English

Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository

The Electronic Learning Center in the LibraryHarry RegenstreifDirector of Language Laboratories, Ann Arbor Public SchoolsIn 1961 the University of Michigan published in the Language Labo-ratory Technical Report #12 an article by this author entitled "TheElectronic Study Center." Outlined in this article were the reasonsand methodology for expanding the ordinary language laboratory intoan installation which would serve as a teaching aid for all subjects.The term "electronic study center" is rather cumbersome, and sinceI am addressing a group which is library -oriented, I shall refer tothe same concept in this report as the "audio-library."In preparing this report for an institute sponsored by a school oflibrary science, one of my major endeavors has been to try to seethe problems involved through the eyes of the librarian. Being woe-fully ignorant of those finer points of library science which go beyondthe Dewey Decimal System and the card catalog, I hope I have notoversimplified or overlooked too many all-important details.Most universities, colleges, high schools, and quite a few juniorhigh schools have installed language laboratories. These installationsare being used with varying amounts of success by foreign languageteachers as a tool for teaching the spoken foreign language. Quitenaturally, these language laboratories are controlled by, and underthe direction of, the language teachers. At this time I should like toquestion seriously the wisdom of having these installations under thecontrol of the foreign language department in the respective schools.I believe, rather, that that collection of teaching aids and the con-cepts which we at present call the language laboratory should beviewed as one of the several components of a modern well-equippedlibrary and so operated.Why do I hold this view? The school library and materials centerhas long been the repository for materials which aided and enrichedclass activities in all subjects. Most, but not all of these materialswere printed matter, usually books. I believe a new type of volume,one on tape, would be an extremely valuable addition and complementto the usual collection of books and other materials. There is littledoubt that the language laboratory has proved a useful tool for theteaching of foreign languages. If it can be demonstrated that such aninstallation can be equally useful as an aid to teachers of all sub-jects, then the school library as a materials center is the obviouschoice to handle this inter-departmental teaching aid. Having accept-ed this concept, it becomes necessary to discard the term "languagelaboratory," and, as I mentioned earlier, in this paper I shall use the27term "audio-library" to refer to an installation similar to a languagelaboratory but adapted and available for use by all departments aspart of the library's offerings and services.How may a language laboratory be adapted to serve all depart-ments? First, it is important to understand what functions a lan-guage laboratory may perform. A well-equipped language laboratory(or audio-library) is capable of performing three basic functions:(1) Simple listening a passive activity in which the student listens torecorded material; (2) The listen and respond function, with its twovariants listen and repeat, and listen and answer (In this activitythe student listens to recorded material and then either repeats oranswers as the situation requires.); and (3) The recording function inwhich the student may record either what he has said in response tothe pre-recorded material, or may record original oral composition.Beginning with the first function, simple listening, I see the audio-library employing this activity as a means of supplying the studentwith enrichment material for any number of different subjects. Theuse of tapes and records (frequently supplied by the instructional ma-terials center) to bring into the classroom great literature read byprofessional actors has long been standard procedure in many Englishclasses. This is an easy and effective way of varying and stimulatingclassroom content and interest, but it has a certain minor drawbackin that employing the same presentation for the whole class does nottake into consideration individual differences and interests. Theprimary drawback, however, is that class time is so limited that theteacher is restricted in the amount of recorded material that may beplayed. An audio-library open to students during study-hall time orafter school would relieve the problem by making available to astudent more and different programs which would complement thematerial presented in class. For example, an English teacher mightvery likely present on tape or record, in class, part of StephenVincent Benet's "John Brown's Body" which is included in many highschool literature books. Either as homework assignment or as anenrichment offering for those who are interested, the teacher mighthave the audio-library play another of Benet's classics, perhaps"The Devil and Daniel Webster."(TAPE SELECTION WAS PLAYED AT THIS POINT.)This is a rather good performance and illustrates the point thatan audio-library can do some things better than the teacher or a book.The teacher and the book will always be necessary, but a good pro-fessional tape brings material alive in an exciting manner that cap-tures and holds student interest. There is also no reason to restrictthis type of activity to English. There are many tapes and recordsthat would be useful to social studies classes. Brief excerpts fromtwo tapes: one, a series of on-the-spot recordings made just beforeand during the Normandy Invasion, and the other a dramatization of28the Lewis and Clark Expedition can be used to illustrate the materialnow available.(TAPE SELECTIONS WERE PLAYED AT THIS POINT.)There are many other tapes in various subject matter fields thatcould be used in the same way. Another possible use of instructionaltapes is as an aid to those students who do not read well. Very fre-quently we find that these students respond well to oral presentations,although unable or unwilling to do reading assignments. It is for thisreason that the Personalized Curriculum Program (in earlier dayscalled the"special room" or "ungraded room") at Ann Arbor HighSchool is planning to install a small language laboratory (or audio-library) type installation which could be used to present taped lessonsin home economics, driver education, and social studies.Thus far the discussion of audio-library utilization has been re-stricted to passive listening on the part of the students. When pos-sible, it is advisable to employ tapes that require student response.One kind of student- response tape, the "listen and repeat" type haslong been used by foreign language teachers to improve oral pro-ficiency and does not require elaboration here. However, some otherlisten and respond types that could be employed in an audio-librarywould include a shorthand dictation tape.(TAPE SELECTION WAS PLAYED AT THIS POINT.)Tapes and records of this type have been used for some time bybusiness education teachers, but almost always with the entire classtaking dictation at the same rate of speed. Using an audio-librarywith facilities for sending out many programs simultaneously, itwould be possible to have the most skillful students practicing dic-tation at a speed of 120 words per minute while others were practic-ing at different speeds ranging down to 60 words per minute.A different type of listen-respond lesson is the "audio-tutorial"tape which begins with a lecture section followed by a question sectionwhich requires active student involvement in answering. A biologytape on leaf structure will illustrate the audio -tutorial tape.(TAPE SELECTION WAS PLAYED AT THIS POINT.)The teacher whose students use a tape of this nature might wish touse it as a testing tape, and eliminate the answers which the tapesupplies as reinforcement. The students' answers might be writtendown and handed in as with a regular test, or the teacher might em-ploy the third language laboratory function, that of recording, as ameans of evaluating the students' grasp of the subject matter. Amore rewarding use of the record function, however, is its use as adevice to assist students in preparing for oral reports. Oral reports29are attractive assignments in that they compel active student partici-pation in the learning process, vary the usual classroom routine, andshould yield significant and valuable side effects in training studentsto gain mastery of that most useful and difficult instrument, thetongue. However, experience shows that with many students the oralreport is a rather dismal and embarrassing failure marked by poororganization, flat, lifeless delivery, insufficient material, and no re-hearsals. But using the audio-library's record function as a re-hearsal tool several times before giving the report "live" in front ofa class would go a long way towards eliminating some of the prob-lems which plague oral reports.Up to this point examples have been cited and samples have beenused of taped lessons most suitable to secondary level students.Needless to say, the same concept may be extended to both the ele-mentary and university levels, the only major change being the levelof difficulty of the taped lessons employed.At the elementary level especially, teachers are sometimes at aloss over what to do with those pupils who have made a "great leapforward" in learning and who finish their seat work long before therest of the class. Nancy H. Davis of Lincoln Elementary School inSan Bernardino, California, gives a very good blueprint for usingtaped lessons at the elementary level in her article "A SecondTeacher," in the April 1961 issue of Audiovisual Instruction. In ad-dition to explaining how taped lessons may be used with elementarypupils, the article also includes scripts for a science and a phonicslesson.Working at the university level, there are many excellent tapes oflectures given by experts in various fields ranging from cloud cham-bers to Latin American socio-economic problems. These tapedlessons preserve lectures given by noted authorities which mightotherwise have been consigned to oblivion, or at least not be availableto students in the original form. The "listening room" is a fixture oflong standing in many university and public libraries but is too oftenlimited to playing music and literature selections.The different procedures and practices mentioned thus far areones which can be carried out at present with components availablefrom the many firms which sell language laboratory equipment. Oneimportant factor to consider in planning an audio-library is how manyprogram sources to include. The number of different program ma-chines will be determined by how many different lessons should beoffered simultaneously. In some university laboratories the numberis several hundred. At the Ann Arbor High School in Michigan, thereare facilities for sending out 100 programs simultaneously. A fewslides which show the electronic installation similar to that found ina telephone company will give an idea of what such an installationentails.(SLIDES WERE SHOWN AT THIS POINT.)30The central program room, located in the Ann Arbor High School,has facilities for sending programs to the high school laboratory andto the three junior high schools which have laboratories of their own.This concept of a central laboratory installation with one or moresatellite labs can easily be adapted to an audio -library so that therecould be auxiliary listening rooms in different parts of a library, indifferent buildings on a campus, or even in different cities. At AnnArbor High School the laboratory network is tied together by leasedtelephone lines; another possibility is to connect the units by radioor private cables.Thus we see the basic language laboratory idea extending in twodirections; first, from one subject-matter field to all fields, and,secondly, from one room to any number of rooms and buildings, in-cluding even the students' homes during after -school hours. Whenthe audio-library is extended to the students' homes or dormitoriesby radio, or phone lines, or some similar device, then taped lessonswill be almost on a par with circulating volumes which a student maytake home to peruse at leisure and as often as necessary. Makingthe resources of the audio-library this accessible is going to go along way towards moving this material far to the right on the "A-line"(accessibility line). As Dr. Louis Forsdale of Columbia Universityhas so aptly pointed out, any material, of whatever value, achievesits full potential only when it is easily accessible to the student, sothat a radio program which is broadcast only once and at a time notconvenient for student use is not very far to the right on the "A-line,"whereas a circulating book in an open stack would be far to the right.In any event, an audio-library should be planned so that a student willbe able to have ready access to the offerings of the audio-library inas many different places and at as many different times as is pos-sible.Still one more extension of the audio-library that I should like topropose is the inclusion of visual aids as a complement to the tapedmaterial. The value that visual stimulus in the form of slides, films,filmstrips, and similar devices would add to the taped lesson is soobvious that I shall not belabor the point but rather content myselfwith pointing out that there are at present devices which can projectan 8mm color motion picture, and in many cases play an accompany-ing sound track, employing equipment that would easily be accommo-dated within the confines of an audio-library booth or carrel.In summary, then, it would be wise for all schools not alreadydoing so to investigate the advisability of implementing the followingprocedures:(1) Expand the offerings of the language laboratory to includetaped lessons for all subjects.(2) Expand the number of listening positions so as to include thelibrary, study hall, dormitories, and if possible, the students'homes.31(3) Explore the possibility of including in the listening posts pro-jection devices which add visual reinforcement for the tapedlessons.A word of caution to those junior and senior high schools whoselanguage laboratories were purchased with NDEA funds, since theselaboratories were approved for use by the foreign language depart-ment it would be unwise and very likely illegal to so modify thescheduling of classes using the language laboratory that the foreignlanguage classes did not have sufficient time to use the laboratory.After all, a debt of gratitude is owed to the foreign language teacherswho pioneered in the development of a learning aid which seems tohave great promise as a teaching tool for all subjects.32

The Electronic Learning Center in the Library

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship Repository

IDEALS @ Illinois