32, no. 3 (Spring 2001): 100-101
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The Language Laboratory as a Primary
Point of Convergence for the Department
ROBERT A. QUINN
SEVEN years ago, in the article “Opening the Doors of the Language Laboratory: New Perspectives and Opportunities,” I encouraged department chairs to consider various innovative ways to use the laboratory and discussed how it can be used to promote the department to prospective students, visiting alumni, and administrators. That article was published soon after our learning center was installed. At that time we were already beginning to see a convergence of the department’s activities around the laboratory. This follow-up article discusses how the laboratory helped focus our efforts, became a center for learning, and gained positive recognition for the department.
It is important for chairs to make progress, provide documented proof of that progress, and publicize it well. Of course, setting priorities and delegating responsibilities are two important ways chairs meet the challenge of leading a department. Another way to facilitate progress is by having a concrete, central focus for integrating activities and bringing the department—both students and faculty members—together. During the eight years that I was chair of the Department of Modern Languages at Millsaps College, I found that the laboratory can serve well as such a central focus. I also found that giving presentations in the laboratory at various times to prospective students, administrators, or alumni was a convincing way of providing tangible evidence of our progress. One of the benefits of this approach was that, year after year, the administration increased the department’s budget.
Like the audience at a play, many of us tend to focus more on the major actors than on the supporting cast. The stars are essential, but an excellent supporting cast can make the difference between a good performance and an outstanding one. I encourage you to consider your “supporting cast"—your facilities and resources as well as your faculty members and majors—as I relate how the groundwork was laid for the laboratory to become a focal point and the ways it contributed to the department’s performance.
For a laboratory to be successful, it must be well-staffed, adequately financed, and supported by faculty members. It must also provide an environment that attracts students. Because I had experience integrating technology into the curriculum at the United States Military Academy and directing the laboratory at the Virginia Military Institute, I was able to train the lab director and the student assistants for the first two years after our laboratory was installed. It is crucial that the director take a real interest in professional development, keep up with pedagogical and technological developments, and participate in professional conferences such as those provided by the International Association of Learning Laboratories (iall.net/). The director should collaborate with both faculty members and students and should train assistants to use the machines well and to be alert to users’ needs.
To provide adequate financing, I requested and received a laboratory fee, which was incorporated in the general fee paid by students enrolled in language classes. This funding allowed for upgrades as well as maintenance. For example, after French satellite programming became totally digital, we installed a digital dish and began using a laboratory classroom as an area for viewing television programs in French. This arrangement let us use the larger, original satellite viewing area for the growing number of Spanish students who were coming to watch satellite television.
Students must know that faculty members consider the laboratory important. In the course descriptions in the college catalog, we stated that lab attendance is required as an integral part of introductory and intermediate courses. In our syllabi, we listed the part of the grade determined by attending lab and explained what we expected students to accomplish during lab sessions. In syllabi for upper-level courses, we let students know which assignments would be completed in the laboratory. Faculty members visited the learning center while students were studying there, checked lab assignments, and occasionally met their classes in the lab area.
The laboratory environment must be inviting. In the computer-video lab, we created an open, comfortable area conducive to study, both for small groups around computers and for large groups around a conference table. The audio lab has booths for private study with audio and video equipment. It is easy to move media equipment on carts to the language classrooms across the hall from those laboratories. Because faculty members’ offices are one story below the lab, teachers have easy access to it without concern for the weather.
As is evident from department Web sites, increasing numbers of faculty members are including media presentations and Web research in their courses. More and more often, teachers expect students to participate in laboratory activities as an integral part of classes. In my Spanish Drama of the Golden Age course, for example, students attended the laboratory in groups to watch filmed versions of dramas, used Spanish word-processing programs to write critiques of the portrayals, and compared the actual productions to what they had expected. Those small group activities enlivened the course, added a critical-thinking dimension, and helped students when they acted out scenes in class. When the laboratory enriches courses, promotes interactive collaboration, and becomes more than just a place where students study in isolation for first- and second-year classes, it begins to play a truly beneficial support role.
When I became chair in 1990, I proposed a long-range plan which began with curriculum reform. Following the plan, we instituted an obligatory placement test, replaced three-hour classes with four-hour courses, and included an hour of required lab per week for introductory and intermediate classes. We also changed the intermediate sequence to a one-semester grammar review course followed by a bridge course focusing on composition and culture, to more adequately prepare students for minoring or majoring in the language. We added career-oriented courses such as Spanish for the Professions (taught as a seminar for premed, prelaw, education, business, and other majors) and expanded our literary offerings by rotating them in a two-year sequence.
The long-range plan also included integrating technology to support the revised curriculum and included adding study abroad programs. After receiving the grant for our laboratory, we obtained a grant for two summer technology workshops (www.millsaps.edu/www/modlang/acslw/) in which teachers from fourteen colleges and universities learned to use applications software to enhance their courses and Web sites, studied pedagogical techniques, and collaborated on projects. Realizing that the lab can provide beneficial vicarious experience but believing the adage “the best way to learn a language is by going to a country where it is spoken,” we established a study abroad program in Costa Rica in 1994. Because of its continuing success, a similar program was initiated by the new department chair last year for French students in Nice. We promptly found that students coming back from Costa Rica wanted to maintain their new conversational skills and that they gravitated to the laboratory area to do so.
Students returning from Costa Rica showed an increased interest in participating in conversation groups. As those groups grew, we opened the video lab area for informal study and for tutoring by majors during the evenings. Majors could enter the laboratory by passing their ID card through a card reader. Students began watching satellite television programs more often, especially at night. Eventually, we found so many students were coming to the lab that we had to specify certain evenings for Spanish, certain ones for French, and another for German.
Because our students enjoyed having equipment available specifically for their use, found the lab a comfortable place to study, and liked being able to study together with other language students in the evenings, the laboratory soon became a center for collaborative learning. The results of curricular reform, study abroad, and a well-supplied, inviting laboratory converged to produce a cumulative effect. Enrollment in several classes, including some upper-level courses, almost tripled. We added a foreign film series, film courses, and conversation classes, all of which proved popular. Before long, the German major, which had been in abeyance for years, was reinstated.
The laboratory has brought favorable publicity to the department and to the institution as well. It is included on the campus tours given for prospective students, used for alumni open houses, and visited by representatives from other educational institutions who are planning their own laboratories. When we set up the department’s Web page (www.millsaps.edu/modlang/index.html) approximately three years ago, we included information about the laboratory as well as faculty members, courses, and activities.
The major purpose of the laboratory, of course, is to support the department’s academic program. It can, however, be more than just a place where students go to work individually on assignments related to classes. As a primary point of convergence for the department, the laboratory can become a center for learning where teachers take advantage of the latest technology and pedagogy to enrich their courses, majors gain practical experience by tutoring others, small groups share authentic experiences on the Web and satellite television, and students collaborate to maintain as well as develop their language skills.
Quinn, Robert. “Opening the Doors of the Language Laboratory: New Perspectives and Opportunities.” ADFL Bulletin 25.3 (1994): 81–86. [Show Article]
© 2001 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
ADFL Bulletin 32, no. 3 (Spring 2001): 100-101 |
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