The article was published by The Fiji Times Online and began with expressing how 'dire' it is that Fijian students be not only proficient in English but also competent. It stated how language learning is unlike learning any other subject area and much more than a paper, book, and test ability. I couldn't agree more!
So what would a language lab look like? A language lab would be a room where students would have access to many technological tools that would allow them to learn and perfect English skills. As the author states, the resources in the language would be 'designed to assist learners acquire and maintain aural comprehension, oral competency, written proficiency and cultural awareness'. These tools would give the Fijian students interactions with competent learners of English and provide the most proficient English Speakers.
The author continues to propose the four types of language labs that would be available to students and uses extensive details to describe the CALL lab and how teachers instructing in this lab would need to not only be educated in the technology themselves, but change their teaching philosophies to accept the curriculum and resources CALL offers.
Now that I'm sure I have excited you as well, I'd like to think of the possibilities of not only our ELs would have with the creation of a language lab but the opportunities we could provide native English speakers with foreign language skills. To me, this is a win-win situation for everyone involved! Learning a 2nd (sometimes 3rd or 4th for our ELs) is probably one of the hardest experiences in our ELs lives. A learning lab would give them an incredible interactive environment where they could build on their skills. I think an environment like this would become a safe comfortable place for them to feel no pressure to not mess up or not be afraid to make mistakes because it would be a working experience.
Sadly, I feel that mostly everywhere I go, whether it be in Pennsylvania, New York, or anywhere, ESL is just a new 'happening' in our public schools. We still aren't quite prepared for the amount of ELs we are receiving and have no 'real stable' policy on ESL instruction. With that means, no real money for creative and genius language learning experiences. The best we can do is try to find these technologies we would implement in a language lab and put them to use with our ELs to the best of our abilities.
Unless of course, the rest of my classmates feel like a march on Washington for more ESL money?!? :)
Read It! Language Labs
When you have a culture (Samoan, Polynesian, Fijian) with 2000 years of tradition in oral storytelling and almost nothing in the way of written storytelling, it's going to take awhile for the culture to begin to produce fluent writers. Indeed, its' really just in the last 50 years that Samoan literature has started to be produced and be recognized. I imagine that the need for language labs is intense as these island cultures work to assimilate to "Western" ideas of written fluency.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoan_literature
WOW!! A language lab!! I read your post like three times because I could not quite wrap my head around it because like you said, it is nothing like what we have. I like the point that they made that it is important for students to not only be proficient in English but also competent!
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