Language Laboratory: Communication Skills

— Language lab is essential according to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) for technical institutions. Language lab provides the scope to the students to improve their communication skills with the help of the technology. The present study aims at finding out whether language lab activities help the budding engineering students of Bihar to improve the communication skills along with the confidence in expressing the ideas or thoughts at any platform. Results show that the use of language lab helps the engineering students in language skills enhancement, if students do the regular practice.


I. INTRODUCTION
Four years stay of the engineering students in the respective departments of the college and their involvement in various activities helps the teacher to observe their problems like stage fear, problem in expression, lack of confidence, writing the script of the program, reading the introduction of the guests etc. These are the common problems in the Engineering Colleges and if these problems are neglected, the employability skills and ultimately placement of the students will be hampered. Confidence in communication skills is the base of successful professional career. Employable engineers have huge opportunities in the engineering job market. Communication skill is the main component of employability skills. Engineering colleges, specially, Training and Placement Officer puts much effort to organize the placement. Many times companies are interested to hire the fresher Engineers but they get disappointed with the performance of the students in the form of soft skills, especially in the form of clear expression of the ideas which are in their mind.
This study aims at answering the questions 1. Is language laboratory useful in teaching communication skills to the Engineering Students of Bihar?
2. Do language lab activities help the student to gain the confidence in Communication Skills?
Thus, the study assumes that the language lab activities will probably improve the listening, speaking, reading and writing skills to the engineering Students of Bihar and boost the confidence among them while using English language as a tool for communication skills. preparing the short introduction of the guest, giving introduction of the invited guests, giving the welcome speech, expressing vote of thanks and so on. As the duration of the program was 21 days, near about all the participating students had more or less opportunities to come forward. Observations of the student's involvement convinced that the students were facing the stage fear, problem in expression, lack of confidence, writing the script of the program, reading the introduction of the guests etc. which are needed to be improved.  (2000) adds that the first audio device welcomed in the phonograph and have immediately adopted other advances in audio technology such as magnetic tape and digital media.

III. LITERATURE REVIEW
Parker (1962) defines the language laboratory is: "an area containing equipment designed to facilitate second/foreign language learning" (p.67). The Webster's New World College Dictionary defines language laboratory as "a classroom in which students learning a foreign language can practice sound and word patters individually or under supervision with the aid of audio equipment, etc". Cesar (2006) defined language laboratory as: "…a teaching tool requiring the implementation of well-constructed tasks based on the students 'needs'". Beder (2008) in defining language laboratory stated: "A Language Laboratory is a room in a school, college, training institute, university or academy that contains special equipment to help students learn foreign languages by listening to tapes or CDs, watching videos, recording themselves. etc" So far, to the best knowledge, all the research conducted on Language Lab have indicated a positive response from the students. None of the research has focused on taking into account the study of Gaya college of Engineering, Gaya. Bihar.

IV. METHOD
The present research has been carried out in Gaya  When the participants have been asked about the frequency of the usage of language lab, 88.2% participants said that Language lab should be always used to teach communication skills in the college for the Engineering Students but 11.8% participants were with the opinion that it should be used occasionally.

VI. CONCLUSION
At the beginning, there were two aims of the present research. The first aim was "language laboratory is useful in teaching communication skills to the Engineering Students of Bihar". On the basis of above data (Para 2 of Findings), it can be said that 94.13% participants have admitted that the language lab activities have helped them to improve their communication skills. As these students are from Gaya College of Engineering, Gaya, all admitted and participated students are from Bihar only. Therefore, it can be said that language laboratory is useful in teaching communication skills to the Engineering Students of Bihar. The second aim of the present research was to find out whether language lab activities help the student to gain the confidence in Communication Skills. On the basis of above data (Para 3 of Findings) it can be said that 87.2% participants have given positive response. On the whole, it can be said that language lab plays the important role in