Language Labs- The History

The term “Language Lab” has been successfully catching buzz for a while in the Educational Sector of the world in entirety. But apart from enjoying its benefits in a classroom either as a class teacher or as a student we have never further looked into its origin, its purpose, and the necessity to have it created, have we? It’s high-time that we explore these aspects one by one. The term language as we know it is a middle-English term came from old English language based on the Latin term lingua ‘tongue’. Laboratory was derived from Medieval Latin labōrātōrium meaning a workshop, equivalent to Latin term labōrā(re) which was transformed into labor + -tōrium -tory 2 So in a nutshell, Language Laboratory means a place where your tongue or verbalizing abilities function or evolve. Anyone can develop, alter and enrich their information on something with necessary equipments, technology and the proper plan of action, not necessarily only on practical subjects, but on theoretical disciplines as well. Language, being more of a theoretical discipline has been flourishing with the advent of digital labs profusely. In today’s world it is important to develop proper and equal dexterity in Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing. In early stages of computer assisted teaching, teachers were mostly equipped with only one computer to teach the entire class. Now this scenario has changed. Computers have become an accessible technology in every school. Different technologies and organizations were established with a view to improve the state of English language all over the world. A few of them are PLATO (Programmed Logic For Automatic Teaching Operations), CALICO (Computer Assisted Language Instruction Consortium came in to existence in 1983), WorldCALL, etc.

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