Hellfrick wrote: … I gather that you own some of these cue cards for some/all editions? …
No, I do not own any A-LM cue cards, this was merely a deduction on my part. Upon reading your question, I reviewed the list of materials above, I noted the item “cue cards”, I compared the image of A-LM German Level One, Unit 13 which you provided to the contents of the student textbook for Unit 13, noticed the compositional similarity of the Basic Dialog to the image, and deduced that the framed cards that you photographed were cue cards. Should I be proven wrong on my conclusion, in my defence, I will counter that I had been misinformed, duped, deceived, led astray, or otherwise betrayed by tricksters, fraudsters, and all manner of nefarious individuals.
Hellfrick wrote: … The number on this card is 27. Does that mean there's at least 26 others? …
As the A-LM German Level One textbook is divided into 14 units, and as the 27th cue card pertains to Unit 13, I would tend to conclude that the total number of cue cards was in the neighbourhood of 30 or greater.
Hellfrick wrote: … It fortifies the belief that these courses were very thorough and well-conceived…
Harcourt, Brace & World Center acquired a very solid and well-deserved reputation for developing complete, well-integrated sets of materials for the American classroom. The A-LM series was but one example. As to the teaching methodology, the
audio-lingual method (which had been developed during the Second War for the training of American service personal), had been proposed to American educators by the Modern Foreign Language Association and the A-LM series was one of the first broad applications. Although it eventually fell out of academic favour, it was widely embraced by American academia, so much so that it is hard to find an American language course classroom textbook from the 1960’s that did not use the audio-lingual method. Should you be interested in reviewing a few other courses, check out the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) Basic courses on the
Yojik Website .
Hellfrick wrote: … It also reminds me of some of the teaching elements I had when I was in elementary school in the 70s …
I spent most of the seventies patrolling in the North Atlantic … it was not half as romantic as Hollywood filmmakers would have us all believe.
Hellfrick wrote: … Like you, I'm a nerd and not a computer geek! …
I suspect that many of the members of this forum would recognize themselves as being a tad nerdy. In any event, while I might feign taking offense at your suggestion that I am nerd, my wife would very willingly testify on your behalf (which begs the question: why hasn’t she left me? I would have left me!)
Hellfrick wrote: … When do you think I could find cue cards? I imagine they wouldn't survive as long as, say, a textbook or even the vinyl…
I am very surprised that any survived at all! During my searches of the internet for A-LM course materials, as well as those for other audio-lingual-based language courses, I came across reports that, when the method was abandoned by American academia and replaced by the communicative approach, many teaching institutions ripped out the reel-to-reel equipment from their language laboratories and tossed it, along with the textbooks, audio tapes, and everything else pertaining to these courses into the trash bin. I have built up my own collection of the A-LM textbooks, Student Practice Records, and reel-to-reel tapes by haunting eBay (OCD just might be a trait shared by many nerds). Given the passage of time, stocks are dwindling.
Hellfrick wrote: … What are the "33-1/3 paper records"? …
As I noted in the list of materials in my initial post, member
mente&cervello reported the use of “paper records” in a separate post. Subsequently, other members have reported using them, as well. While I do not have an image of an A-LM Student Record wherein this type of material was used, the photograph below depicts a standard 7-inch x 33-1/3 rpm vinyl record superimposed over a set of 7-inch x 33-1/3 rpm “paper” records.
Paperbacked records.JPG
It would appear that, in the early 1960’s, the recording industry introduced the single-sided, paper-backed record technology wherein heavy sheets of paper were covered with a thin film of plastic upon which the recording was pressed. As far as I understand, this low-cost production process was introduced so as to assist companies offer free-of-charge sound recordings as promotional items to prospective customers. In the sixties, a number of publishers of phrase-book-style language guides adopted the technology (my collection of vintage materials contains a few examples). Some members who have used the A-LM paper records have reported that the
lifespan of these materials was rather short. However, as students were required to pony-up for a set of 15-odd Student Practice Records for each level of their A-LM courses, and as the vinyl editions would have been comparatively more expensive, the paper versions would have had the advantage of decreasing the students’ financial burden.
Ciao!
EDITED:
Typos, tinkering.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.