In operation a language laboratory is held in a partitioned classroom; Magneticons (magnetic disk machines) are installed in the laboratory at the back. During any hour period half the class meets with the teacher in the front of the room, while the other half works in the laboratory under the supervision of the native speaker. Halfway through the hour the two halves of the class switch around.

The advantage hoped for is obvious: greater oral-aural proficiency through more intensive training and the use of a native speaker. The only disadvantages are possible loss of time in a poorly-disciplined transfer of students and the expense of the machines, native informant and partitioning.

Other new procedures in the teaching of language are being worked on by the SUPRAD experimenters at the Newton High School. These involve the use of 36 long-playing records for French I and II containing the vocabulary and idioms of the textbook reworked into short conversations. The pupil will sign out a new record every two lessons, and part of his assignment each day will be a section of the record to do at home.

This project is expected to increase the individual opportunity which the average student fails to receive in a class of thirty, to cut down on repetition in the classroom, and to impart greater conversational skills than can now be done in a classroom four hours a week.

The second principal objective of SUPRAD, that of promoting greater efficiency in the use of time and space in the schools, is the goal of the "Newton Plan." It is thought that the whole classroom set-up of a school may be made much more flexible, thus permitting both lectures to large groups of students and small-group seminars.

Specifically, it was found, in a study of the English Department of Newton High School in the summer of 1956, that 30 percent of the material could be most suitably presented by a single, well-prepared and equipped lecturer speaking to a large group of students.

Accordingly, during the '56-57 school year the English Department offered 35 hours of lectures in English and 22 hours in speech. Groups attending the lectures varied in size from 100 to 450. The problems encountered were that some pupils, lost in the anonymity of a large group, were tempted to pay little attention and the others had gotten the impression that the lectures would be only a simple reveiw and thus came to class with a lazy attitude. To check these problems note taking was required of all students and tests were administered.

The problem of how closely to integrate lectures with classroom work was dealt with by giving each classroom teacher autonomy in his own teaching, but advising him of the lectures well in advance and encouraging him to use them as fully as possible.

Preparation for the Newton Plan lectures was exhaustive. The lecturers undertook a maximum of research and planning and prepared their various audio-visual aids themselves, finding that commercial slides and other aids were in most cases not exactly suited to their needs. Each lecture was then given a dry run before colleagues and revised on the basis of their suggestions.

In 1957, after a four-week summer "workshop" for planning and the preparation of teaching aids, the Departments of Business, Social Studies, Mathematics, Modern Foreign Languages, Art, and Music joined the program and are employing the Newton Plan methods in a variety of ways.

The basic advantage of the Newton Plan lectures is that a teacher's time can be used more effectively, for if a teacher has several classes that are required to attend lectures, he is freed from the necessity of preparing an alternative class or even from attending the lecture once its constant has been determined. The time thus saved can be used by teachers for research, conference remedial work with individuals, and for teaching small discussion seminars.

SUPRAD is connected with the Newton Plan only by serving as organization for evaluation; Newton High School teachers and administrators originated and are carrying out the Plan.

"Homogeneous" groupings versus "heterogeneous" groupings is one of the major issues in junior and senior high schools today. Homogeneous groups are those which are composed of students of approximately the same academic ability and industry; heterogeneous grouping results from the grouping of students with different social and academic backgrounds in order to achieve a representative cross section in each class.

SUPRAD investigators have proposed a compromise for the Newton Junior High Schools. They have decided to try teaching in academically homogeneous groups, the content of science, mathematics, certain foreign languages, the specialized aspects of art, music, industrial arts and home economics, and the remedial aspects of English.

The proposal also suggests that, "for reasons of human relations and group morale," the subjects of social studies, physical education, the common learnings content of industrial arts, home economics, art, music, and certain aspects of English, are best taught in heterogeneous groups.