Salem State College | Department of Foreign Languages | Language Resource Center

Language Lab Requirement

The Department of Foreign Languages requires that all students enrolled in beginning and intermediate language courses spend one hour per week doing lab work at the Language Resource Center. This should not be seen as an extra requirement, but rather as the most effective way for you to do the work that you must do outside the classroom to learn a language.

(NOTE: For a college course, the work done outside the classroom should take anywhere between one and two hours for each hour spent in the classroom. Thus, language students are expected to spend 3-6 hours per week studying the course materials on their own outside the classroom. Of these, the department requires that a minimum of one be spent listening to sound tracks, watching video clips, doing exercises online, etc. AT THE LRC. Note that you are still expected to spend a few additional hours preparing for class, doing homework, etc., which you may do at the LRC or elsewhere.)

Your instructor will tell you how you should fill that weekly hour. The main activity that you will be doing will be listening to the lab-book sound tracks ("lab tapes") which come with your language textbook and filling out the "lab" part of the workbook. Other activities that you may engage on include:

1. Foreign language drilling exercises and interactive activities with foreign language software (Spanish, French) and online exercises
2. Read online foreign-language media (newspapers and magazines)
3. Listen to online foreign-language radio stations
4. Watch foreign-language films and documentaries (Spanish, French)
5. Communicate in the target language with live people, email, mailing lists (French Club, Spanish list Castellano), pen pals
6. Consult a tutor in the LRC (if available)
7. Study with a classmate
8. Research or writing a paper, composition, or presentation
9. Consult foreign language reference materials (Web, software, books)
10. Listen to foreign language songs (while viewing the lyrics): Click on the appropriate links on the the desktops of LRC computers

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Detailed information for specific course levels

• Spanish 101
• Spanish 102
• Spanish 201
• Spanish 202
• French 101
• French 102
• French 201
• French 202
• Italian 101
• Italian 102
• Italian 201
• Italian 202
• Arabic 101
• Arabic 102
• Arabic 201
• Arabic 202
• German 101
• German 102
• German 201
• German 202

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Salem State College | Department of Foreign Languages | Language Resource Center

Page URL: www.lrc.salemstate.edu/labrequirement.htm

Last updated: August 21, 2006