Photos by Lee Pellegrini
Sixty years ago, Boston College hailed a new addition to the University’s academic resources, the Modern Language tape library, which had just opened in Lyons Hall 313. Its features included 36 individual booths, each with tape recorder, microphone, and earphones; a three-channel console for faculty members to lead group exercises; and a large, widely diversified collection of instructional tapes in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese.
Benedetto Fabrizi, the library’s director, was effusive about its benefits to students. “The mastery of a language is gained infinitely faster through oral work, which, when acquired, leads to a more thorough facility in reading and writing the language,” he told The Heights. “The profit gained from one hour’s constant work with a tape recorder can amount to that gained from a number of classes, where the student has relatively few chances to exercise himself orally.”
Flash forward to 2019. In February, Karen Daggett, a part-time faculty member in Romance Languages and Literatures, sat in Lyons 313—now called the Language Laboratory—preparing for an oral exercise that would likely have seemed incredible to Fabrizi: BC undergraduates in her Spanish class interacting via Skype with students from ITESO (Instituto Technológico y de EstudiosSuperiores de Occidente), a Jesuit university in Guadalajara, Mexico. During these sessions, the BC students receive help in their conversational Spanish from the ITESO students, who in turn are aided in their English by their BC counterparts.
Daggett’s assessment of the impact of this Virtual Dual Immersion (VDI) session on the students was as upbeat as Fabrizi’s comments from 60 years ago: “The BC students walk in nervous, and walk out pumped up. Before, they couldn’t imagine speaking conversational Spanish for such an extended time, especially with people they’ve never met. And then, they become the ones who give the help. It’s an incredibly enlightening and empowering experience for them.”
That the Language Lab’s resources and facilities have evolved dramatically since 1959 isn’t exactly a revelation—six decades of educational technology advances will do that. But what’s also changed is the nature of the lab’s mission, and its centrality to the University’s academic and formational mission. As part of the commitment to global engagement inscribed in its Strategic Plan, BC envisions an “internationalized” campus with increased opportunities for students, faculty, alumni, and others in the University community to spend time abroad, whether for long-term study and research or short-term experiences, such as immersion or service programs.
In this light, administrators say, the more BC can do to prepare people for encountering different languages and cultures, the better—and that’s where the Language Lab comes in.
“Fluency in more than one language is a significant advantage for our students and alumni,” said Vice Provost for Global Engagement Alberto Godenzi. “Multilingualism builds bridges to other cultures and traditions. And it makes it easier for students to find internships and jobs in the global marketplace. Boston College’s Language Lab is a tremendous asset for students aspiring to learn and master a foreign language.”
Cynthia Bravo joined the Language Lab as supervisor in 1978 and has been director since 1983.
“The Language Lab has come a long way since the days of sit, listen, and repeat,” said Cynthia Bravo, who joined the lab as supervisor in 1978 and has been director since 1983. “But it’s not just the technology we now have available. Our outreach extends beyond language departments to other departments or non-academic areas of the University that might have a need for our services and resources—all in the spirit of encouraging multicultural exploration.”
The lab’s offerings include audio CDs with self-instructional programs in more than 30 languages, among them Tagalog, Urdu, Punjabi, Czech, Pashto, and Mandarin Chinese; international news broadcasts and other television programming accessible through BC’s subscription to SCOLA Web Services (a SCOLA app is available for iPhones, iPads, and Android devices); and DiLL (Digital Language Lab) for Macs, enabling students to listen to audio and make recordings, engage in self-practice, and interact with the instructor and classmates. Digitized audio programs from the lab’s collection are available on the BC network 24 hours a day, seven days a week, via the Canvas course management tool to students officially enrolled in courses using these programs as curricular material.
Supporting language classes is still the lab’s major task, but its resources have been used for other purposes: by Connell School of Nursing students in need of medical Spanish for their service trip to Nicaragua, for example; for supporting events or programs of the Office of International Students and Scholars, Office of International Programs, and the Volunteer and Service Learning Center; and by a visiting scholar from abroad looking to improve his English pronunciation.
The VDI project, which began in 2010, is a partnership between the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities and its Latin American version, AUSJAL (the Spanish acronym for Association of Universities Entrusted to the Society of Jesus in Latin America). VDI is a milestone not just because of the technology involved, said Bravo, but that it brings into play some key, basic aspects of personal communication.
“It’s human nature: You like to see to whom you’re talking. And when you see them speak, you see their gestures, their facial expressions, body language, the way their lips move when they enunciate—visual cues that help your understanding of language. Moreover, VDI is where people are now, especially the college-age generation: They’re used to Facetime or other apps that have video as well as audio. It feels familiar.”
Economics major Matthew Cerny ’21 wanted to continue his Spanish studies from high school upon entering BC (“I think it’s vital to have, at the very least, enough knowledge and confidence in another language to hold a basic conversation”). He had been nervous in anticipation of his VDI session, but after he and his conversation partner, Carlos, had talked for a few minutes the anxiety fell away: In addition to going through the planned conversational exercises, the pair talked about favorite soccer teams and dream vacation spots, among other things.
As much as Cerny enjoyed making a friend thousands of miles away, there were other important benefits to the session, he said: “It gave me so much more confidence in my Spanish-speaking abilities, and that confidence has helped me in the classroom. Often times, the classroom in a Spanish course can be stifling, as you become afraid of mistakes leading to bad grades. With the VDI program, there were no grades and no costly mistakes: just a casual conversation which allows you to open up and speak freely.
“To hear a Mexican student, the same age as me, compliment me on my Spanish is better encouragement than any A on an exam.”
“I learned a lot from my conversation partner, whether discussing the topics we were assigned, and simply talking about ourselves,” said Philip Acinapuro ’22, a finance major in the Carroll School of Management. “We had a blast talking about our common love of the music of The Doors.”
Bravo said the informality of the VDI sessions belie all the preparation that takes place weeks, if not months, beforehand: accounting for time, class schedule and academic calendar differences between Boston and the partner institution, determining how many students will take part, and how their respective levels of language facility match up. On the day a session takes place, she noted, the computer stations all have to be up and running, logged in and connected before the students enter the lab, so there’s no time lost for the interaction.
For all the state-of-technology resources, Daggett—who calls the lab “one of BC’s best-kept secrets”—says the Language Lab’s sheer volume of materials can yield unexpected treasures. “Some of the items from the past are gems. I found a little mystery thriller from the 1970s, a book with an audio component—it’s so corny, but it really works. And that’s what’s important: finding the things that help your students learn.”
—Sean Smith | University Communications | March 2019