From: Shawn Albert Shepard
I sometimes wonder if I’ve become too critical, if seven years as a proofreader and 5 years of Quality Assurance have somehow altered my brain so that I'm quicker to note discrepancies than positives.
For example, I’ve been interested in foreign languages since I first tried to learn Spanish in grammar school. Since then, I’ve revisited Spanish many times, and spent considerable time exploring Latin, Italian, French, German, and the many variations of English (alas, I haven’t actually learned a foreign language). Most recently, I’ve become enamored of Korean (my fiancé is Korean).
So, it was with great interest that I began reading Technology in the Service of Foreign Language Learning: The Case of the Language Laboratory.
The first sentence was intriguing.
“Foreign language learning lends itself naturally to the use of media.”
Many questions came immediately to mind. What’s the scope? How will “foreign language learning,” “naturally,” and “media” be defined? Which media will be explored? Too what depth? Will I be able to relate the media discussed to any I’ve used?
The beginning of the second sentence piqued my interest even more.
“Linguists stress the primacy of speech over writing in language…”
That’s very interesting. Admittedly, I’ve read less than 1% of the literature on linguistics, but it never struck me that linguists focus more on the spoken than written language. If speech is the primary focus of linguists, then for whom is written language the primary focus?
Then, the middle of the second sentence annoyed me.
“…children can listen and speak before they learn to read and write and all languages of the world are spoken…”
What? Am I reading that right? Why is the author ignoring those with disabilities?
Ok, I can accept that the author is speaking in generalities and maybe subjects like body language and language disabilities really aren’t part of this discussion. But, isn’t sign language a language that is not spoken, or does the author’s definition of “spoken” encompass anything that isn’t written? Does this statement reveal the author’s definition or bias?
You can see why I wonder if I’ve become too critical. I haven’t even finished the second sentence and my cup runneth over with skepticism. But, I understand that one has to try to focus on the main point of the work and how the conclusions are derived from that point.
The main point comes out in the third sentence.
“… foreign-language educators have been heavily involved in the use of audio equipment.”
That thought is amplified later in the paragraph.
“The focus is on specialized audio installations…. The discussion is largely confined to the language laboratory in the United States.”
So, the author has expressed the theory that “foreign-language educators have been heavily involved in the use of audio equipment” for language laboratories in the United States. The other statements are assumptions (poorly stated in my opinion) that serve to narrow the discussion to spoken languages.
OK, but, so what?
The author seems to have anticipated this reaction.
“… the history of the use of technology to teach languages has not been duly noted …. the research that accompanied these commitments has not been appreciated by the larger educational technology community.”
The author goes on to describe the evolution of the language laboratory in parallel with the evolution of audio technology, noting that “1946 is considered to mark the beginning of the modern language laboratory movement.”
Whether true or not, the text is liberally sprinkled with some thought provoking statements such as the following nugget.
“The language laboratory movement threw content and media specialists together in an intimate working relationship that produced a very strange and startling experience. For the first time, language teachers discovered that the mode and materials of instruction interact with instructional behavioral objective and methods.”
Indeed, in spite of a rocky start, I found myself in agreement with the author’s conclusion.
“… for foreign-language educators it has never been an issue of whether to use audio technology; it has been a question of how.
As to whether or not the study of the evolution of audio technology use in foreign language learning holds important ideas for education in general and educational technology in particular, and is therefore worthy of a deeper examination, I suspect most educators would agree. But I’m not at all sure that the author has made a convincing argument for those who would disagree.
Anglin, G., Vaez, K., Cunningham, K. (2004). Technology in the Service of Foreign Language Learning: The Case of the Language Laboratory. In D. Jonassen (Ed), Handbook of research on educational communications and technology (2nd ed., pp. 523-529). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.