Console type language labs

[Arran]

Console type language labs started being installed into secondary schools and colleges during the late 1960s as a fantastic and miraculous way to rapidly learn foreign languages. They consisted of a room filled with consoles for students each containing a reel to reel tape recorder, a microphone, and a set of headphones. The student consoles were controlled by a teacher console at the front of the class which was covered with numerous switches and indicator lamps that the teacher could use to start and stop tape recorders or listen and talk to students. The teacher console contained another reel to reel tape recorder that was often used to play to all the students then the students would individually reply and it would be recorded on the tape in their own console.

Language labs reached their heyday in the 1970s and almost every secondary school and college must have had one but they seem to have fallen out of use around the time that O Levels were replaced by GCSEs. They were very unreliable machines and many of them had broken down around the same time. By the mid 1990s most schools and colleges had stripped out and scrapped their language labs. It's quite possible that none of them still survive today unless there happens to be a school somewhere with a mothballed foreign languages block.

In more recent years the concept has been resurrected using networked PCs.

[Richard1978]

Re: Console type language labs

I remember one of my teachers telling us that one of the language rooms was originally a language lab, but it was converted back to a normal (if large) classroom because keeping the system running was like painting the Forth bridge.

Almost every week a headset or microphone needed replacing & wern't cheap to replace.

Also I've heard the taped lessons wern't very good either.

[Arran]

Re: Console type language labs

There was a language lab in both my secondary school and college. They were stripped out many years before I started but I have seen old photos of them. Language labs suffered from poor reliability and the need for constant maintenance to keep them running, as well as being a tempting target for vandalism by kids, but I suspect that changes to the curriculum was what really resulted in their demise.

The development of language labs was a result of the audio lingual or US military method of learning foreign languages which originated in the US during WW2 when there was a sudden requirement for servicemen to have to know foreign languages. This was then followed by the Cold War when it was used to teach Russian to large numbers of servicemen and intelligence officers in the US.

Does anybody have O Level foreign languages materials from the 1970s when language labs were commonplace? I have a few early 1960s O Level papers that only include reading and writing foreign languages but no listening or speaking exam.

[80sChav]

Re: Console type language labs

Sounds very interesting Arran .. I'm sure trying to imagine Labs as so!!

No way would my High school (well the first one) have them the 2nd one possibly 9just) though I can not recall them or any of my Colleges of F.E neither. They sound awesome, indeed!

80sChav

[Arran]

Re: Console type language labs

In the late 1960s language labs were seen by educational strategists as being a revolutionary way to learn foreign languages quickly and easily. Sadly they did not live up to their hype. They are a piece of technology I would love to have a play around with but do any still exist anywhere?

I suspect that similar parallels exist between language labs and computer suites in the late 1990s and early 21st century where it is questionable whether they have improved educational standards in most subjects or made them easier to learn.