The Oral Language Archive is a collection of recordings of native speakers for the study of foreign languages. The Archive's unit of progress is the Volume, comprising 72 minutes of digital audio on compact-disc. Each Volume contains up to 50 dialogues, recorded using topical guidelines developed in the European Union to characterize the language needs of employees traveling and living internationally. Students working with properly contextualized OLA recordings are better prepared for common real-life situations involving foreign languages and cultures.
Exposure to authentic language is critical for the building of communicative competence in foreign languages. While the ideal environment for this exposure is residence in an area where the language being learned is spoken, this does not by and large characterize the conditions for language learning in the United States. The OLA materials enrich language instruction at intermediate and advanced levels through a flexible modular approach adaptable to remedial, intensive and self-paced instruction, as well as to standard class structures.
A multi-language prototype was successfully completed in 1994-1995 with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Volume 1 of French and Japanese were completed in 1996. Volume 1 of a Spanish Archive was completed in 1997 with support from the National Language Resource Center at San Diego State. Project participants have accumulated expertise in recording, evaluating, digitizing and preparing foreign-language audio. Our current goals include the preparation of versatile instructional materials to accompany existing OLA Volumes, expansion of the coverage of the Archive through the recording of new Volumes, and increased dissemination of all Archive materials.
We distribute Volumes on audio CD from CMU. Site licenses for Archive volumes are also available, for which dialogues will be distributed in a format appropriate for LAN or Intranet use. It is also possible to license dialogues for inclusion in courseware for commercial or academic redistribution. Click on "Purchasing/License" above for further details.
Samples in various languages can be played from this Website. These are based on 16 bit, 22.050K mono Quicktime files compressed 4:1 using the IMA standard. Click on "Samples" above.
As always, we are interested in feedback from educators and developers who have had contact with OLA materials.
Japanese Volume 1 (55 dialogues) has now been completed, edited by Etsuko Takahashi, as has French Volume 1 (41 dialogues) edited by Christopher M. Jones and Spanish Volume 1 (48 dialogues) edited by Susan Polansky