Yamada Language Center Pioneers Web-Based 'Virtual Language Labs

Joyce Winslow
jwins@uoregon.edu

The era of the cassette tape is drawing to a close--at least in the UO's Yamada Language Center (YLC).

Last May, the YLC received a grant from the UO's Educational Technology Committee to help fund a web-based virtual language lab (VLL). Working with software developer Jim Duber (http://www.duber.com ) and led by IT Specialist Ginny White, YLC staff produced three web-based teaching tools that extend or replace the traditional language lab: a "virtual tape recorder" that provides basic recording and playback, a multimedia messaging system that allows teachers and students to communicate via text, audio, or video, and a customizable interactive survey and quiz maker (SQM) for instructors that can be used to collect speech samples as well as other types of input. The VLL utilizes two data base servers, a web server, and a FlashCom media server set up by the Computing Center's streaming media specialist Tony Kay.

Catherine Wiebe, a Senior Instructor in French, was the first to incorporate the new tools in her teaching, introducing them in her upper-level orals skills class during winter term. She found that the Message Board (MB) tool, which enabled online discussions and assignments, gave students more opportunity to speak and made it easier for her to provide timely individual feedback, both written and spoken, on their pronunciation and grammar. This term Wiebe intends to use the MB with second-term French students. If she's able to arrange it, she may also use it for cross-continental communication, pairing students who plan to study abroad in Lyons and Poitiers with students who are already in France.

Thanks to the efficient use of multimedia, virtual language labs like YLC's can make teaching less mechanical and a lot more creative. Because it frees individuals from having to be physically present in a classroom, the web-based approach also has the potential to serve far more students, any time, anywhere.

You'll find more details on YLC's virtual language lab at http://babel.uoregon.edu/ortesol.html For more information on using one or more of these web-based teaching tools, send email to ylc@uoregon.edu UO faculty interested in using the YLC Message Board can sign up at http://babel.uoregon.edu/messageBoards/