ABSTRACT

Teachers are no different from other people in their mistrust of the newfangled. Still, the tape-recorder had come to stay, and gradually it became more reliable and to evolve newer, bigger and better forms. The value of the Language Master was fairly clear: the child sees a picture and simultaneously hears its name pronounced by the familiar voice of his teacher – neither more nor less than the look-and-say method, in fact, with the important difference that the teacher no longer has to be bodily present and is free to help other individuals or groups. The primary use of a teaching machine is to provide the child with a programme of work ideally matched to his needs which he can get on with while the teacher is made free to help other individuals, and the type of machine we are most likely to find in schools is an electric or electronic one based on some kind of tape-recorder.