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Language Labs
SMU's foreign language provision has gradually expanded since its first language course offering in the academic year 2001-02. It now offers Basic one-semester courses in Mandarin, Malay, Spanish, Japanese, and most recently, French.
Cultural and language proficiency helps our students benefit from the occupational and personal opportunities open to them in the global market, and our Language Labs provide some of the necessary resources to help our graduates to enhance their language learning experience.
The Language Labs serve a dual purpose - they act as classrooms for foreign language courses and also double as a self-access language centre to supplement regular weekly classroom instruction.
More specifically, the aims of the language labs are to:
- Serve as both a self-access learning centre and also as regular language classrooms
- Serve as forums where students can interact with best-of-the-class TAs and invited native speakers of Japanese, Spanish, etc (e.g. foreign exchange students), using them as conversation partners
- Provide students with resources to improve foreign language proficiency (particularly speaking and listening)
- Serve as a forum in which students can interact in their language of study or engage in area studies of the respective languages (e.g. BSMs)
- Enable language instructors to remain at the cutting edge of language pedagogy
The Behavioural Lab
The Behavioural Lab, a 3,000 square feet facility, is dedicated to academic behavioural research and is currently under the charge of the Marketing Faculty of the Lee Kong Chian School of Business. It has proven to be a very critical and useful resource for faculty whose research involves human subjects, providing both the space and the equipment crucial to such research. The type of research conducted in the Lab runs the gamut from investigations into the psychological processes involved in memory, consumer surveys, to studies in decision theory. The Lab is partitioned into five separate spaces, with each optimised for different data collection methods. For instance, one of these spaces consists of computer-equipped and sound-insulated cubicles that are ideal for experiments which involve individual subjects or those for which precision is required in measuring subjects' response times. The Lab also has a space equipped for conducting focus group studies, comprising two rooms adjoined by a one-way mirror as well as the necessary audio equipment to allow observers to observe focus group discussions. The remaining spaces in the Lab can be utilised for pen-and-paper studies and computer-administered studies. In all, it has a dozen computers and equipment for video, audio and slide presentations.
Software and application developers, lab technicians, and research associates work closely with faculty to prepare and run experiments in this state-of-the-art lab.
Simulated Trading Room
The Simulated Trading Room (STR) is located at the Concourse within the SMU main campus, near the Computer Centre and other academic laboratories. The stand-alone terminals at the STR can be linked to a dedicated computer server for interactive trading in securities or investment simulation.
The main purpose of the STR is to allow faculty members 11 August, 2006data to contextualise market conditions. Up-to-the minute financial data can be flashed on a projector screen, the upfront LCD screen, and each of the computer terminals. This infrastructure allows students to monitor news, observe actual market price movements, and make investment decisions as events unfold.
Appropriate software may be pre-installed for portfolio optimisation or share trading. SMU has acquired a number of databases, including Thomson, University of Chicago 's Centre for Research in Security Prices (CRSP), and hedge fund commercial data. From these data sources, faculty members and students can extract financial information for learning and research.
The STR will be useful for computer-based learning or computer-aided teaching. It is well-equipped to facilitate e-Learning and host investment simulation games, such as the "Financial Game Challenge", for stock selection and "The Bourse Game", for foreign exchange trading.
Students may use the STR for their assignments, term papers and investment games while faculty members may use the STR for their research and teaching. .
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