C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 Language labs used to be the fad when I was a kid learning new languages. We had a great one for German, and I used another one for English at a point (although not much). Have those pretty much disappeared from the language schools? If so, for what reason? And have you tried to set one up at home with the computer? Basically, you listen to a sentence in the target language, you repeat it while recording your voice. Listen to the original again, and compare with your recordning. I want to set something up like that for Spanish. I have the sentences I want the kids to work on, but I'm wondering how to seamlessly add on the recording and listening. Am I making sense even? :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maverick_Mom Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 I remember attending a language lab when I was in college and learning Spanish. I found it very helpful and an indispensible part of the instruction. When one of my kids began taking French in ps, dh and I noticed at open house that the teacher made no mention of any sort of language lab. Dh asked the teacher about it, and she said that language labs are now considered "passe" (her word). FWIW, I was not impressed with dd's grasp of the language following that class. I can't say for sure that "passe" methods such as language labs might have made the difference, but it makes me wonder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted February 19, 2009 Share Posted February 19, 2009 I know Rosetta Stone has that component to its program, and I'm guessing a lot of other software-based language programs do too - I'd wager that the computer is now a much more efficient way of comparing your voice to a native speaker than a tape recorder (it will actually digitally analyze how close your repetition comes to the native speaker) - so the old tape and earphones model went out. If you don't have access to native or at least fluent speakers to converse with, I can see this being a useful component. A living language needs to be spoken and heard, not just read and written. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joan in GE Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 of Rosetta Stone does a test session at the beginning of the lesson to note your voice - just asking you to say "1,2,3,4,5". The earlier versions were not as sensitive and I think just had a "male or female" voice option. Anyway, this does really specialize their analysis of whether you are answering properly. My daughter's German sounds great so far. Best, Joan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
C_l_e_0..Q_c Posted February 20, 2009 Author Share Posted February 20, 2009 I'm not thinking about Rosetta Stone, but I'm wondering if it's worth the trouble to set up one's own language lab? I have files from Assimil to learn Spanish that I could use for this. Years ago, I went through Assimil German in a language lab. It worked great for me. I wonder why it's now considered passé. I know the technology is no longer the same, but it sounds to me that it should be even better now. Are there studies that discredited language labs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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