Digital Language Lab for better Classroom Interaction

In earlier times, the teacher was considered as a sage whose job was to load learners’ head with knowledge. The situation has changed a lot and the learners are no more recipients to be filled with knowledge, but individuals with unique needs to develop their skills and initiate their own learning in a serene atmosphere.

This shift in learning perspectives has its manifestation in the present classroom settings. Educators across the world give supreme importance to classroom interaction in teaching and learning processes. With the advent of ICT enabled teaching-learning, classroom interaction has become crucial in students’ development and learning system.

The term “interaction” itself is coined of two morphemes, i.e., inter and action. Interaction is a kind of mutual action or influence that both parties can benefit from. In English language learning, interaction denotes the language or actions used to continue converse, educate or work together with participants involved in classroom teaching and learning process. While considering the main participants in classroom interaction, that is, the teachers and students, we can assume of different possibilities in the interaction pattern. There the communication may be between teacher and students, student and teachers and students to students.

However, according to modern pedagogical theory, better learning takes place only when there are greater initiatives from students in classroom. In other words, we can say that when the students are more free to take decisions on their own, to take initiatives to talk, ask and answer questions, to participate in discussions, debates and role plays, they can contribute more to the learning process.

With the use of digital language labs in language learning, learning became more students centered and the focus is on learning. Language labs give importance to tasks than on lectures. Utilizing the software, students can work collaboratively in groups and take decisions. The activities are designed in a way that students are given opportunities to deliver more than one answer. Students get sufficient time to interact and critical as well as divergent thinking is initiated through these kinds of tasks.

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