NERALLT

The New England Regional Association for Language Learning Technology started as an informal gathering of Boston-area lab directors in the late 1960s. It has progressed from a small local group which met on Saturdays (after all, who could afford to be away from the lab during working hours?) to a large regional group which set the standard for regional organizations of IALLT (International Association for Language Learning Technology), now our national organization.

From the beginning, a hallmark of these meetings has been that they are held at a different laboratory each time. We still do the rotation; it is the best way to see the unique aspects of each lab's operation. Each lab is different --from its physical layout to its administrative placement within the institution. Each lab faces its own challenges and you will see as many different solutions to our common problems as there are labs in New England (and we still haven't seen them all!).

In our jobs, we all have something in common: No one else seems to understand exactly what we do! We are unique within our institutions. What a joy it is to gather with other language lab staff who understand what we go through in a typical week, who have grappled with the same frustrations and who speak the same language!

NERALLT meetings continue to afford us a forum to share what we know and learn from each other. We have gained in our professionalism over the years but we continue to face many of the same issues: how to integrate new technologies (and how to keep up with the rapid pace of change ourselves); how to more effectively share these advancements with faculty; how best to network with our peers. Past meetings have covered such diverse topics as copyright laws for non-print media; computer assisted instruction; satellite receiving equipment and programming; designing a learning resource center; cataloguing A/V collections; getting the most out of your student staff; grant writing; software/hardware demos; and many more.

This wealth of information has come from lab folks and faculty like you — people willing to do a little research on a topic of interest and report back to the group. We've all benefited immensely from NERALLT and we continue to grow. Come to a few meetings and you'll always find something of interest, something to take back to your own institution.