to direct the new Language Learning Center. (photo JMW)
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Cindy Jorth uses her background in German and computers
to direct the new Language Learning Center. (photo JMW) |
Cindy Jorth, director of the center, and whose background is in both German and computers, supervises the lab during class hours. The lab is open for thirty foreign language classes in levels one through four. Twenty-one computers can accommodate up to thirty-one students by using multiple headsets at some stations.
Jorth reported that faculty have been receptive to this new opportunity. Faculty received one semester of training, in which Jorth spent time teaching the programs and sharing creative ways to use them. Faculty are now implementing the technology in their classes. While it is time intensive to learn new programs and techniques for teaching, faculty have been willing. It is crucial, said Jorth, that teachers use techniques that are pedagogically sound. "We don't want them to just use it because we have it,"she said.
The new computers allow students to record themselves reading an essay and then play it back. This is the first time many have heard themselves speak. This is less intimidating than traditional classrooms because of the privacy of personal headphones. According to Jorth, some students spend the hour recording their essay over and over, working on pronunciation.
Also available are keyboards with characters from other languages; language tutorials in French, Italian, and Spanish; and the Internet.
The Internet has become an important tool in teaching foreign languages because it gives students access to authentic texts and native speakers. Students often look at Web pages in other languages written by people their age. They also e-mail messages to students in Germany and France. These opportunities bring a real world experience not possible in traditional classrooms.
Possibly the most important component to the lab's success is the Tannenberg program, which gives teachers access to all the students' computers as they work. This allows teachers to listen to and work individually with each student.
Jorth is excited about what the Multimedia Language Learning Center has been able to provide so far and is grateful for the support of Dean Donald Heinz and Provost Scott McNall. She is also looking forward to creating a student intern program that would extend lab hours and open the lab to upper-division language and culture classes. The program would be open to credential and graduate foreign language students and would give interns hands-on teaching and technology experience, which is becoming an integral part of new teaching positions.
Jorth is also in the early planning stages for summer workshops for K-12 instructors to teach ways of integrating technology into their curriculum. Jorth sees this as extending the Multimedia Language Learning Center to the community and "a way to make CSU, Chico a center for technology, not just in computer science, but in the humanities, too."
SL