The Auroville Language Lab opened its new
building in February 2017. Auroville Today reports on the developments.
When I
first heard about the Auroville Language Lab, the immediate association was
grainy black and white pictures of people with headphones, sitting in booths
listening to audio tapes. The use of technological devices in language learning
is as old as the phonograph. After Edison’s invention of the phonograph in
1877, the first record sets for learning English and Spanish were available in
1893. The first dedicated laboratory for foreign language study was set up in
the University of Grenoble in France in 1908. An American, Frank Chalfant,
studied in Grenoble and took the idea to Washington State College. The rest, as
they say, is history.
Language
labs have evolved from the early phonograph days to modern digital labs, but
the idea seemed to be past its glory days of the mid-20th century. So, I was
curious to see what such a lab w...
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