By BRITTANY WALL

Staff Writer

Though many students find learning a foreign language difficult, completing the lab assignments may be easier next quarter.

The foreign language lab will remove all the old video monitors and replace them with computers from Wyly Tower of Learning, Dr. Tom Lewis, head of the department of foreign languages and a professor of foreign languages, said.

"The cassette players will still be there for students and professors who want to use them," Lewis said. "But it is going to be a lot easier and a lot less time consuming once these computers are installed."

Lewis said he has been giving his students compact discs with all the lessons on them. Students can use these discs at home to complete their lab assignments instead of having to go to the lab.

"The new disc allows students to slow the voice down while they are listening," Lewis said. "It is also better for the professors because, instead of having to listen to the whole tape, we can just get an e-mail of the student's voice. It also helps the student keep from having to rewind the tape back and forth."

Some students said they believe the new lab will be much easier and much more helpful than the old one.

"I hope that the new lab will be easier to use than the old one," Joshua Taylor, a junior English major, said. "Using the lab now is so time consuming and it's really kind of difficult. I'm looking forward to the change."

Lewis also said because there has been such a high demand from students to learn other languages, the lab is adding a self-study program to a few of the computers.

"Students have asked about learning Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and German," Lewis said. "These are languages that students really want to learn, but we have no instructors for. Now students can learn how to speak these languages through a very interactive program."

Lewis said this particular software is effective because students can compare their speech with that of the native speaker and they can also compare intonation.

"I have always wanted to learn how to speak a foreign language," Ashley Griffin, a sophomore medical technician major, said. "My high school didn't have a lot of choices in the languages we could learn, so it's good that I can finally have some choices in college."

Lewis said he is confident the new software will not only help students become better speakers of the language they are studying, but it will help teachers be able to better work with students on the areas causing them difficulty.

Lewis said, "This program is not perfect, but I believe it will certainly be more helpful and efficient than the current program."