3. Multimedia Language Labs: A Platform to Shape Professionals
Birinder Kaur , Research Scholar, Dept of EDP & Humanities, SLIET, Longowal, Punjab
&
Dr. JapPreet Kaur Bhangu, Associate Professor, Dept of EDP & Humanities, SLIET,Longowal,Punjab
Abstract
The paper attempts to unfold the basic need for our students to develop excellent communicative ability and the role of Multimedia Language Labs in imparting a platform to our students to prune their skills of communication. The paper is an effort to mark the benefits of Multimedia Language Labs and how these labs offer the tailor-made programs and content material to match the requirements of every set of learner. The paper would also attempt to highlight the reasons why English language teaching should be positioned as a priority to facilitate learning and secure international opportunities.
Introduction
The development in the existing information resources, the profusion of technical expansion, the speedy monetary changes and promptly growing international openings have shown the way to sensitive competitiveness in the professional world. These immediate improvements necessitate redefining of skill sets amongst us, thereby shaping a complete persona of an individual. Today, no matter how proficient a candidate is, if he wishes to meet global standards and wants to accomplish an international level occupation, he is not only required to prune his skill set in the concerned area but also develop English communicative expertise. With English being affirmed as an international link language, its acquisition has become a necessary requisite. The pursuit to instill the excellent English communication skills amongst the students of our country is definitely a wise indication, suitable to the altering global state of affairs. English not being a native language poses a number of challenges to its learners in India. To synchronize with global advancement, the Indians are required to raise the standards of their English proficiency in order to enhance their potential and capability. But, English language being foreign to us, there exist a number of social, psychological, linguistic and cultural divergences. It is high time we should position English language training as a priority to facilitate students to secure the best educational opportunities and excellent employment as they grow.
Some of the most progressive institutions around the country have taken certain initiatives to add a few novel strategies of functional usage of the language in their study pattern. Such institutions are focusing much on interactive learning methodology rather than traditional lecture oriented methods. J. Jayachandran rightly observes about the importance of interactive learning and the learner centered approach,
“Every learner is an individual with different needs and abilities of learning a language. Traditional methods of teaching a language placed the teacher in a role of a transmitter of knowledge while learners were seen as passive recipients of this knowledge. With the advent of communicative method of language teaching, the focus in the classroom shifted from the teacher to the learner. Current trends in the field of English language teaching focus on learner autonomy, learner involvement, learner generated syllabi, creation of relaxed atmosphere for learning and training to relate to need based training”1. The focus thus has to shift to student friendly methodologies.
Process of Learning Language
Before examining the various techniques that may be employed for teaching the English language, one must understand the process one goes through while learning any language. Language is not something we inherit; rather it is a skill that we acquire from the environment and through practice. In other words, in order to acquire the English language, we must first create an environment where we may hear, listen to, copy and speak the language on a regular basis. This is important since English language is hardly used in our day to day business. Secondly, the emphasis has to be on practice, since it is only through repeated practice that one may develop proficiency in its usage. So the early the process of practice program starts, the early these learners would be able to adopt this foreign language as their own. It is a fact that young learners learn through a natural process without the fear of evaluation or any embarrassment. That’s why it is recommended that English skill development programs should begin at an early stage with a thorough stress on the functional usage of English. These programs must cover all the aspects of Communicative Language Teaching i.e. Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing (LSRW).
Multimedia Language Laboratory
In order to achieve the desired consequences, there is a need to develop and provide proper infrastructure to the pupils of English language. And that is where the requirement of multimedia equipped language laboratories becomes mandatory. These labs not only help generate the necessary environment where one listens to the language on a regular basis but also facilitate the practice required for its acquisition. Only the teacher’s lecture oriented approach is not sufficient to solve the purpose which can be done through an interactive teaching and learning methodology. Mark Warschauer explains the importance of multimedia saying,
“Multimedia technology exemplified today by the CD-ROM allows a variety of media (text, graphics, sounds, animation and video) to be accessed on a single machine. What makes multimedia even more powerful is that it also entail hypermedia. That means that the multimedia resources are all linked together and that learners can navigate their own path simply by pointing and clicking a mouse.”2
Moreover multimedia and language labs is one of the most powerful combined methodologies where the students avail the dual benefits of Instructor-Led Training (ILT) as well as Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL). Michael Levy describes CALL,
“as the search for and study of applications of the computer in language teaching and learning. The name is fairly recent one: the existence of CALL in the academic literature has been recognizable for the last thirty years. The subject is interdisciplinary in nature, and it has evolved out of early efforts to find ways of using the computer for teaching or instructional purposes across a wide variety of subject areas, with the weight of knowledge and breadth of application in language learning ultimately resulting in a more specialized field of study”3
Along with this the multimedia component and the Computer Assisted Language Learning also provides a platform for a student to analyze the self progress and helps them rate their own performance continuously imparting valuable feedback. The course contents of such multimedia language labs are so designed that it pursues a parallel structure. Such structure allows the theory of the concept to be introduced through Instructor Led Training (ILT) sessions which is followed by practice sessions through innovative approaches in Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) sessions. We cannot deny the fact that multimedia language laboratories certainly provides us with extraordinary gadgets and devices to organize, observe and converse with the pupils. Mark Warschauer aptly lists the benefits of multimedia,
“First of all, a more learning authentic environment is created, since listening is combined with seeing, just like in the real world. Secondly the skills are easily integrated, since the variety of media make it natural to combine reading, writing, speaking and listening in a single activity. Third students have great control over their learning, since they cannot only go at their own pace but even on their own individual path, going forward and backwards to different parts of the program, honing in on a particular aspect and skipping other aspects altogether. While the main lesson is in the foreground, students can have an access to a variety of background links which will allow them a rapid access to grammatical explanations or exercises, vocabulary glosses, pronunciation information or questions or prompts which encourage them to adopt an appropriate learning strategy.”4
Benefits of Multimedia Language Labs
Thus there are a number of benefits of using these multimedia language labs as a medium of instruction:
1. Multimedia increases the teacher student interaction because it provides us with ample number of channels to communicate i.e. video chat, text chat, voice chat. It also incorporates a lot of audio visual elements.
2. Multimedia labs covers all the aspects of language learning such as grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, free speech, intonation and modulation and remedies to relieve the pupils from the regional influences of the mother tongue.
3. Multimedia labs enhance the retention level of the students because the students can watch the lessons visually as compared to just being a passive listener. They get an opportunity to watch even the missed pre- recorded classes and presentations. The full featured archives also contribute in revising the lessons any time. Important classroom sessions can also be recorded for the future reference.
4. Multimedia labs can compensate for the shortage or lack of quality faculty. The recorded lectures through digital libraries can be used where the expert teachers are not available. Even the live interactive lectures by experts can also be broadcasted.
5. These labs deliver an opportunity for the students to keep an entire hold on their own learning. The software involved let the pupil work according to their capacity and also provides instant feedback for constant improvement.
6. Multimedia also helps the students to resolve their weaknesses in terms of pronunciation. Irrespective of teacher’s accent, the students get hold of the correct accent as the practice on these gadgets is imparted by expert’s neutral accent which is free of various regional influences.
7. Multimedia also empowers the learners to do the self assessment because of its unique feature of listening –recording and comparing which again provides an opportunity for self evaluation. The learners can also track their own progress through the course and generate personalized performance reports. In a way such infrastructure helps the learners to sharpen their abilities along with providing privacy during practice with no embarrassment or fear of evaluation by their peers or superiors.
8. These labs not only help the learners acquire this foreign language but also allow them to give a complete makeover to their personality too. A lot of programs in these labs include the group discussions, presentations, role plays, personal interview skills etc. Along with this they can sharpen their intellectual capability, enhance creativity, judge their approach to solve various problems and prune their leadership skills through this multimedia infrastructure. It also helps them develop confidence, competence and command over English language, thus making them a perfect professional.
Learner Centred Programs
These labs comprise the curriculum based content materials for all categories of learners, i.e.
1. For the persons with no formal exposure to English or who have studied English only as a second language and who witness lot of problem in basic communication and expression of thought in routine situations, these labs offer the various programs suitable for beginners. These programs deliver remedies to vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. The grammar sessions in these programs emphasizes on basics of grammar and its constructs that allows a natural acquisition of grammar as well as vocabulary. Wide practice with audio visuals such as listen, speak and compare or speak, listen and compare helps them shunt their mother tongue influences. As a result of going through this course the beginners can surely expect to develop the basic vocabulary and the structures to manage situations such as meeting new people, introducing self and people around, describing regular routine activities, participating in group activities, narrating incidence, expressing emotions and feeling and involve in most functional activities with fairly good amount of accuracy and fluency.
2. For the people who are almost intermediates and are equipped with functional vocabulary and structures, with just a need to perfect their pronunciation, accent correction, voice modulation with grammatical accuracy, these labs also offer certain programs that help develop fluency, accuracy and confidence in using English.
3. For the people who can be categorized as advanced learners and have fairly good language range and just require an appropriate and effective usage of the language in professional situations, these labs offers programs to enhance verbal communication skills, to increase speech fluency and idea formulation, role plays and activities, group discussions, mock interviews and presentations, telephonic etiquettes, news listening and comprehension etc. With the help of such courses the learners are able to grab a perfect fluency for the professional purposes of Group Discussions, interviews, appraisals, brain storming, independently compose writing and letters, application, reports, proposals and summaries.
Johanna Klassen and Philip Milton in their paper “Multimedia and Language skills, Enhancing English Language Skills using Multimedia: Tried and Tested” have also revealed through a viable study that students who completed the syllabus in a multimedia-enhanced mode demonstrated significant improvement in listening skills when compared with students who completed the same syllabus in the traditional classroom mode. The results also demonstrate positive attitudinal changes for the multimedia-enhanced mode of learning.5
Conclusion
However the effectiveness in the results can only be achieved by those who not only own these resources but also by those, who know how to put it into effective practice and thereby making a constructive usage of this advanced technology. The learners who progress through these courses can expect to advance themselves from a state of being diffident in using the language functionally to the state of being extremely confident in facing situations in which they are required to communicate. So, it is evident that multimedia labs and Computer Assisted Language Learning can definitely act as an effective tutor to prune a raw student into a complete professional. By going through extensive practice in the multimedia labs one can surely nurture confidence and enhance fluency in the use of this foreign language. There is no doubt; having enhanced command over the language imparts a winning edge to a professional, which is extremely necessary in a highly competitive milieu like ours.
References
1. Jayachandran, J. (2007 )“ CALL, As a Method to Develop Study Skills in Students of Engineering and Technology at the Training Level”, The Indian Review of World Literature in English, Vol. 3, No. II, July 2007.
2. Warschauer, M. “Computer Assisted Language Learning: An Introduction”, In Fotos. S. (ed.) Multimedia Language Teaching, Tokyo: Logos International:3-20
3. Levy, Michael, (1997) “Computer Assisted Language Learning, Context and Conceptualization”, Oxford University Press, New York: 1997, p.1
4. Warschauer, M. “Computer Assisted Language Learning: An Introduction”, In Fotos. S. (ed.) Multimedia Language Teaching, Tokyo: Logos International:3-20
5. Klassen, Johanna & Philip Milton, (1999) “Computer Assisted Language Learning”, Vol.12, No. 4, October 1999, p.281-294