Portuguese Language Course for Children

• With traditional methods of foreign language teaching, the student is listening only for about 15 seconds of every minute, i.e. for about 25% of the lesson.

• With the Language Lab Method, he has to listen for 60 seconds of every minute (i.e. four times as much), because he has to constantly interact in the class.

• With traditional language methods, the student hardly opens his mouth during the lesson. The trainer does most of the talking and a great deal of the time is spent with the trainer writing on the blackboard, or with the students writing in their notebooks.

• With the Language Lab Method, the students are speaking the whole lesson, at least four times as much as they would be with any other form of language teaching.

• With traditional methods of language teaching, the students are not leaning to speak and understand the language; they are only learning about the language. This is like trying to learn to play the piano by just by listening to the trainer play. The only way to learn to play the piano is to play it. The only way to learn to speak a language is to speak it.

• One could say that Language Lab Method is not four times faster than other forms of teaching, but that other forms of teaching are four times slower than the Language Lab Method.

• The Language Lab Method makes maximum use of the time available.