Faculty
Innovation in Teaching
Program

2003 Award

Effective Tools for Audio Practice in Language Learning

Slava Paperno and Dick Feldman, Arts and Sciences

Summary

Daily practice in speaking and listening is crucial during the first year of foreign language study. In the Russian Language program, historically students and teachers engaged in an every-other-day exchange of audio tapes recorded by the students at the Noyes Language Lab. Although effective, this system had its shortcomings: the quality of the recordings, the administration of the flow of tapes and completion of assignments, the inability to review work from previous weeks, students’ reluctance to spend time at the lab, equipment breakdowns, and others. We anticipated that by moving to a process that made use of digital technologies, the gains in effectiveness for both student and teacher would be substantial.

Instructional challenges

• Improve the process of teaching a language.
• Facilitate a higher quality of teacher commenting on student recordings.
• Enable teachers and students to use their time more effectively.
• Provide a better record of progress over time.
• Identify ways to better engage the student in the learning materials.

Technology solutions

• Create a custom application that presents the student with audio assignments in the context of an online textbook and allows them to record and upload utterances for review by their instructors.
• Develop an instructor interface that allows the application to be modified for teaching other languages in addition to Russian.

Development highlights

• Slava Paperno programmed a custom application, Web Audio Lab (WAL), in Macromedia’s Director MX, and a Web Audio Recorder that can be used separately from WAL.
• Purchased a back-up system for Noyes Language Lab.
• A team of students converted the textbook and audio recordings for use in WAL.
• Purchased of high-quality headsets for use by students.
• Students in Russian 121 are currently using this program in place of the audiotape method of previous semesters, and are uploading their audio files for review by their instructors.
• A web-based interface allowing instructors to easily review and comment upon the recorded assignments.
• A companion student interface to access the comments and a scalable solution for audio compression

©2005 Cornell University

The Faculty Innovation in Teaching Program is supported by the Office of the President and the Provost. Project development is provided by Academic Technology Services and User Support (ATSUS), a division of Cornell Information Technologies, IT.