Financed by the College of Fine Arts, the Language Lab is opened for students at WTAMU.
The lab is equipped with a computer software to help students learn the Spanish language through interactive activities to improve language understanding.
“The lab was installed in the summer,” Dr. Hector Garza, assistant professor, said. “Because of technical difficulties, we could not use it until a few weeks ago.”
The lab has positions for thirty students and a teacher who is able to control the panels that connect the microphone/headphones.
Dr. Garza said that the lab allows teachers to speak to the class, place students in groups, monitor the work of students, and have one-on-one communication with students.
“[The teacher] can record audio files for listening comprehension,” he said. “For that [the teacher] records and has the audio on demand for taking this part of the exam.”
According to Renet website, language labs “provides the students with a variety of model voices rather than just the voice of the teacher, who is often not a native speaker”, helping the listening comprehension of students.
Garza said that the lab can also be used for oral examinations.
“The oral part is something that needs to be exploited more in this program,” Garza said.
Renet website explains that “oral test features allow instructors to test students with a question or stimulus and only record the student’s answer.” That way the instructor can play back the recorded answer later for grading.
Daisha Manuel, junior spanish major, said that the lab is going to be helpful for students´ education.
“[The lab] is very beneficial especially for not native speakers like me,” she said.
Junior Management and Business major, Ana Ramirez, is a fluent Spanish speaker and said that the lab will help students in their learning process.
“[The teacher] can test how they speak,” she said. “Practice makes it better.”
Garza explained that the lab is currently used for learning the Spanish language, but it has the potential to be used for other languages as well.
Currently the lab is used only when teachers take their students to the lab, but the department is thinking about opening it for extra hours.
“In the future we are thinking about the possibility that the lab is opened with a lab assistant,” Garza said. “[This way] students can use the lab when they require and we can leave exercises there for them.”
Manuel said that having an opened lab will be favorable for her studies.
“It is good if [the lab] opened more than just class because sometimes we need it for projects,” she said “[Currently], I contact a native speaker friend for help, so it will be good to have it opened all day.”
