While language labs have been around for decades, thus far the ability for students to actively participate in auditory learning of foreign languages has been curtailed in part by faulty equipment, outdated materials, and the high cost of supporting more than one group of students at a time. While native speakers in the past have been used to record the phrases and while students had the opportunity to repeat them and at times even record themselves, the general lack of high quality interactive media made this approach to language learning only marginally better than simple book learning.
EuroTalk is aware of the problems faced by today’s language students in the educational setting, and to this hand the company has developed the “Network Solutions” package. Tailored to the needs of your classroom setting, you will have the opportunity to purchase a server disk with 50 licenses for users, a copy of any one of the available interactive language programs, and then simply install the setup onto your network. Functional for Windows, CSE, or RM, the EuroTalk’s LanguageLab product works! (www.eurotalk.ie)
Instructors have lauded the ability to gain access to their special teaching edition of the program, while at the same time they are able to monitor their students’ individual progress or collectively prepare printed reports for the entire class. By adding download capabilities that permit data to be transferred from the EuroTalk LanguageLab program to Microsoft’s Excel and Access as well as a host of other data collection programs, superior record keeping will come in handy at grading time. Since students are no longer bound by malfunctioning equipment, they now have the ability to perform the tasks at hand from their workstations and as they speak in keeping with the prompts given by the interactive system, the instructor may now listen in on the progress the students are making as they speak and repeat phrases and words.