Labs aid language skills
If you walk into the small wooden building behind KU's large Blake Hall, you will see a number of students sitting in little open cubicles along the walls in several rooms, all of whom seem to be muttering and talking to themselves in strange languages.
It's not a joke and they're not really talking to themselves.
The students are enrolled in a KU foreign language course and are practicing in the University's language laboratory.
THE LAB, A separate department of the College of Liberal Arts, performs an important service for the language students who use it.
"I think that the only way one can learn a language well is to practice it, and the language lab system offers a student a unique and effective way to meet this need," said Ermal Garinger, laboratory director.
Through headphones, the student listens to a tape recording of pronunciation on a master tape from the control room and follows along in his text, repeating the sentence after the expert. Both his pronunciation and that of the expert's are recorded on the student's own tape in the booth which he can replay for comparison.
The lab is open every school day, Monday through Thursday evening, Saturday mornings, and Sunday afternoons, a total of 68 hours a week. Its services are free and most of the students using the facilities come to practice on their own free time.
ACCORDING TO A study conducted last semester over 900 students used the tapes in a week, 78 classes held regular meetings there, and 28 classes met there for an occasional session in a week.
Classes can meet in either of three rooms set aside for class lessons; one room is reserved for students to use when the teacher requires it.
Besides working with tape recordings, the classes or students also can view films in conjunction with their recording work in two of the rooms.
Garinger said that, although Spanish and French tapes receive the most traffic, the language lab offers most of the modern languages — German, Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Danish, Russian, Swedish, Latin, Hebrew. Polish, and Norwegian.
"WE HAVE TALES in the language for the first eight hours," and beyond that we have recordings of drama, poetry, and music in the language."
For these languages, Garinger noted that the lab would have enough tapes to take the student through the first eight hours of the course dealing with grammar and pronunciation.
The tapes were used interchangeably for any number of upper class courses in that language and simply gave the student an idea of the country's cultural background.
"The language lab is mostly to
Cape Kennedy plans for 3-day spectacular
CAPE KENNEDY — (UPI) — Project engineers planned to put the Gemini 9 spaceship through a string of practice "flights" to nowhere today in the last big test before launch next Tuesday on America's most ambitious manned spaceflight.
Today's Gemini simulated flight exercise was expected to run into the night with astronauts Thomas Stafford and Eugene CERN participating in much of the run later today. Successful completion of the test will signal the start of final
launch preparations for the threeday rendezvous and spacewalk spectacular.
help the student with his oral work, listening and speaking, and only deals with the culture." Garinger commented.
THE PLANNED launching of a 492-pound Explorer satellite today to map earth's upper atmosphere was called off shortly after 1 a.m., EDT. The shot was expected to be reset for Thursday.
A space agency spokesman said the "serub" was called after the Explorer launch team had fallen more than six hours behind as a result of radio interference problems with a guidance unit aboard the satellite's Delta rocket.
Three of the most infrequently used and most unusual tapes are several that offer Blackfoot Indian, Erdu (a language from Africa) and Ipili (Australian outback).
"THESE THREE languages are used for study by various linguistics classes." Garinger said.
The lab can play 22 different lessons at one time.
The lab presently has 66 booths but will be increased to 90, when an unused room is equipped.
COLLEGE BOWL COMMITTEE will interview for subcommittee
Student operators regulate the master equipment and channel the particular tape into the booths.
positions on Friday and Saturday, May 13th & 14th
The concept of a language laboratory is only about ten years old, and the KU lab, built in 1956, was one of the pioneers in the field. The lab is "now quite antiquated." Garinger said.
"THERE HAVE been many improvements and the lab offers adequate service now," he said. "New developments should be made, however, before the lab moves to the new humanities building, slated for completion in two years."
Applications can be picked up at Coll. Office, 206 Strong
"In 1956, we were one of the first in the Midwest with the lab," he said. "One of the disadvantages in being first though, is that you get stuck with the covered wagon.
"Eventually, we hope tapes will be remotely controlled and the student will not have to thread the machine himself. We hope to have an automatic dial where the student can dial a number for the particular tape he wants.
"These additions will eliminate a terrific amount of tape fumbling and waiting on the student's part," he said.
First graduation, a verbal bouquet
The oratory at Kansas University's commencements never again reached the heights it did at the school's first annual commencement—in 1873.
For the speaker at that first commencement was Kansas' famed Senator John J. Ingalls, whose penchant for the high-flow pendant is reminiscent of Illinois' Senator Everett Dirksen, today's silver-tongued Solon.
THE SPEECH IS too long to repeat here, but the opening paragraph will indicate the flavor. Rising slowly and walking to the rostrum, Ingalls paused—a tall, thin wraith of a man.
"Mr. Chancellor, Ladies and Gentlemen. The first time I stood upon this consecrated eminence, I looked southward and eastward down the enchanted valleys of the Wakarusa and the Kaw, through the vacant embrasures of a rude fortification that frowned with incongruous menace above the pastoral landscape for whose tranquil and diversified beauty nature has no rival, art has no synonym.
Clustered along its base, and mirrored in the sluggish stream were the humble homes of those new Pilgrim Fathers of the West,
impelled by 'The unconquerable mind; And freedom's holy flame' to establish in solitude the germs of those institutions which in this brief interval have grown and expanded into a civilization that is one of the great wonders and marvels of the world; a civilization that would have been almost miraculous had its energies been expanded in the material triumphs which have been achieved over the stubborn forces of nature, and the wild and wasteful wilderness; the railroads that have been builted, and the cities that have been strung like pearls along their iron cords; the streams that have been bridged, the commerce that has been nurtured; the vast areas that have been rendered productive; the industries that have been developed; but far more marvelous when considered in its confection with those higher attributes which today we here perform, to commemorate the first annual Commencement of the University of Kansas. This is the State's consummate hour."
4 Daily Kansan Wednesday, May 11, 1966
University of Kansas Experimental Series THE BLIND MOUTH
by
Desmond Walsh
May 12, 13, 14 and 17, 18, 19, 20, 21
Student tickets: $1:50 or 75c with current certificate of registration
UN 4-3982
Murphy Hall Box Office
The Classical Film Series Presents
BALLAD OF A SOLDIER (1960) U.S.S.R.
Admission 60c Wednesday-7:00 p.m. Dyche Auditorium