Monday, January 12, 2015

The Bell & Howell Language Master




First post of the year, I hope this finds you well (or at least better than I've been with a fever and head cold.)

The Bell & Howell Language Master was a language teaching system used by language and speech therapy instructors in the 1960s and '70s. It used 3 1/2" x 9" inch cards with a strip of magnetic tape that ran near the bottom of the card with two tracks that ran for 3 seconds. One for the instructor, the other for the student. It allowed switching between tracks to compare instructor/student pronunciation. 


*Guitar effects pedal (as shown in the video) not included.

2 comments:

  1. Yes, Yes--I vividly remember using one of these in my grade school days--one of my classes had one of these machines with a few cards (I remember recording and playing back one of them, it was a fun machine for a 2nd grader for me to use!). I was racking my brain until now trying to remember what the name of the system was! Thanks for posting this, quite a nostalgic flashback for me!!!

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  2. My dad was a first grade public school teacher and had this thing in his classroom in the early 1970s to help kids learn to pronounce and spell words. I still remember one of the cards he recorded: "Cookies ... cookies ... cookies ... C-O-O-K-I-E-S..." It seemed pretty funny, especially since I heard this in fourth grade around 1972. He didn't have it around for very long, so I suppose this system didn't sell for very long?

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