Offline Language Lab
Do you want to create a piece of writing in your second language, using only your own ideas, from start to finish?
Come to our Offline Language Lab to do just that. The OLL is designed to help you move naturally through the stages of the writing process in a device-free, distraction-free environment. There are plenty of supplies; not only pens and paper, but whiteboard walls, index cards, sticky notes, markers, and even several no-Internet desktop computers for when you're ready to type.
Leave AI, devices, and the online world at our front desk and (re)discover what your brain can do.
Faculty are encouraged to bring their classes to the OLL! Please email [email protected] to inquire about availability.
FAQs
The Offline Language Lab is part of the Language Resource Center, located in the School of International and Public Affairs building at 420 W. 118th Street.
Directions once inside the International Affairs Building:
(From the 420 West 118th Street entrance)
Enter the International Affairs Building from its main entrance at 420 W. 118th Street. Walk past the 4 elevators towards the glass atrium and go up the stairs towards the open court, bearing left. Take the hallway on your immediate left following the signs for the Language Resource Center. At the end of the hallway head down either the stairs or the elevator to the third floor. On the third floor exit through the glass doorway and take a right to our front desk.
(From the Amsterdam Avenue entrance)
When entering the building from the Amsterdam Avenue entrance, the one opposite to the campus gate and university Chapel at 117th street, you will start on the fourth floor of the International Affairs Building. Bear left when you enter and follow the corridor past the vending machines to the glass atrium. Go around the atrium to the diagonally opposite corner and take the northeast hallway of this floor, Just past the SIPA admissions office. From there, head down either the stairs or the elevator to the third floor. On the third floor exit through the glass doorway and take a right to our front desk.
The OLL is a space specifically designed to help you think and write away from online distractions. To get the most out of the experience, you're asked to leave your devices with our front desk staff while you're there.
The supplies in the OLL are there to support all stages of the writing process: pre-writing, drafting, revising, and editing.
Writers in the OLL have access to lined and unlined paper, pens, traditional and mechanical pencils and erasers, whiteboards and whiteboard walls, dry erase markers, sticky notes, index cards, and clipboards.
There is also a small library of world language textbooks, dictionaries, and style guides.
There are also two computers (without access to the Internet) with Microsoft Word. Writers are encouraged to bring their own USB/memory sticks to save copies of their work, as the computers are wiped regularly.