Audio and Visual Multimedia Materials

The multimedia materials are an integral part of the instructional materials and should never be regarded as optional or supplementary. You cannot ignore the multimedia component of your language materials and expect to learn the spoken language, regardless of the time spent reading the text.

There is a tendency to misunderstand the function and use of the multimedia materials. They are often thought of as a poor substitute for the native tutor and something to be avoided if learning can be accomplished in any other way. However, remember: practice is the key to learning to speak a language. Effective language study is based on mastery of a skill that can be perfected only through practice and more practice! The academic study of "facts" (e.g. analyzing grammar rules, verb conjugations, etc.) is only the beginning to developing proficiency in a foreign language. Although not a perfect analogy, learning to speak a new language is similar to the development of such skills as playing tennis, or playing the piano. It should become somewhat second nature. Therefore, any attempt to skimp on practice time is a false economy and in a self-instructional program could well make the difference between success and failure; the audio materials will repeat the same material over and over indefinitely without the slightest change in pronunciation or construction. This makes it possible to receive in a relatively short time the exposure to the countless repetitions you need to imprint a foreign language utterance in your mind. Proper utilization of the audio materials is fundamental to the acquisition of basic language skills!

From this point of view, it is almost impossible to overdo practice. An hour every day of the semester should be thought of as a minimum. Do not concentrate the practice into a few long sessions a week. Practice work requires such intensive concentration that it can only be effectively sustained for short periods of time. Invariably, attention span and concentration waiver in marathon sessions. Find the limit of your own "practice attention span." It may be as short as 20 to 30 minutes at a given time.

REMEMBER: The number of hours per week devoted to language practice will determine your progeress. It is important, however, to devote time to your language practice on a daily basis. Practice should be spread evenly over the entire week. Many short sessions, even on a given day, are preferable to one long session. Incidentally, experience has shown that "catching up" on practice, unlike doing so in reading, is virtually impossible. So do not procrastinate! Cram sessions are not a substitute for daily practice!

You should thoroughly master all material in the lesson being studied. Merely reading the dialogues, exercises, and grammar explanations will not accomplish this. In order for the language that you are studying to become automatic or instinctive, it is necessary to repeat all recorded material numerous times, until you reach the point at which the dialogue, exercise, or drill is virtually memorized or "overlearned." When you can understand and respond properly to all such text/audio materials without hesitation, error, or prompting, you have begun to "internalize" the material. Your ability to control and manipulate grammatical structures and vocabulary will become automatic, and will not require conscious encoding and decoding. Your performance and proficiency are directly dependent on regularity and frequency of practice.

If you find that you are putting in a lot of practice time, but nothing is sticking, the problem is undoubtedly that "putting in practice time" meant you were concentrating on how much time you were spending rather than how you were spending the time. Students often "put in time" by mindlessly repeating material while their attention drifts away. This is known as "practice hypnosis," and often results from undirected, unfocused tape work, or from trying to do too much at once. The cure is short, sharply focused tape sessions.

As you practice, remember to repeat everything out loud. You cannot learn to speak just by listening. After all, you want to learn to speak this language. Silently mouthing the language (or mumbling it) to yourself will not give you the practice or confidence to use the language in a real setting. Learning to speak a language means speaking aloud!

Except for the time required to read explanatory notes on grammar and usage, or unless specifically requested on the practice materials, you should always work with the text closed. The point of the tape work is to train your mouth and ears! Of course reading along with the tape is easier--you are letting your eyes do all the work. Unfortunately, you are relying on the text which will not be available when communicating in a real situation. Your practice should be an exercise in comprehension, pronunciation, and response practice, not a reading exercise. As a rule, the text (dialogue or drill) should be read before the practice work, but should not be open during the tape work.

If you seem to have trouble with listening comprehension, you will have to spend some extra time listening to utterances, and then stopping to check yourself closely on how well you really understood what was said. Did you get it the first time? Drills, exercises, dialogues--just about anything on the practice materials--can be used for this sort of intensive comprehension work.

If you have trouble understanding, try listening to it and repeating several times without the text in front of you. Then, if it is still unclear, refer to the text for an explanation. Do not be put off by differences in pronunciation between the speech of your native tutor and that on the materials. They are both within the range of permissible variation, and you should be able to understand both. No matter what your first reaction may be, the audio is not too fast, and you must be able to follow the material at that speed.

If, while working with the material, you experience difficulty in mastering long sentences, you might try the "backward build-up" technique: Divide the sentence into short phrases, and begin drilling the final phrase. When you are comfortable with it, add the phrase (or few words) immediately preceding, and so on, until you have reached the words which start the sentence--at which point, you will be reciting the entire statement without error or hesitation. You may need to rely on visual material initially, but when practiced properly, you will be able to produce the sentence fluently, without glancing at the text.

When practicing, try to duplicate precisely the speaker rather than accept a "reasonable" approximation in your own accent. Think of yourself as an actor learning to play a character role, and attempt to copy in every possible detail the utterances you hear on the tape.

In conclusion, as close to 100 percent of your time as is possible should be spent on the active phases of your work - listening, repetition, and practice, either with the multimedia materials or the tutor. Your goal is to develop linguistic skills, not just knowledge. In language learning, mental comprehension isn't enough! You need to learn to "perform" the language as well! The grammatical explanations are aids to learning a language, not an end in themselves. Don't stop when you feel you understand the grammar; stop only when you can use the language fluently. Your ultimate goal is, after all, learning the language, not learning about it.


CLP Guidelines and Policies » Student » Text » Tape
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