During the past fifteen years, educators and electronics specialists have been experimenting with language facilities, usually by modifying equipment components which were originally designed for other purposes. The rapid growth, wide diversity, and newness of these electronic aids to language learning have created the need for a study of the most effective systems of such equipment and their related technical specifications. To meet this need, the U.S. Office of Education initiated a contract, under Title VII of the National Defense Act, with the Electronic Industries Association for the preparation of this Technical Guide. The report contents include: (1) What Is a Language Laboratory?; (2) Why a Language Laboratory?; (3) Planning for a Language Laboratory; (4) Language-Laboratory Systems; (5) Purchasing a Language Laboratory: General and Specific Technical Specifications, including technical language, what must be specified, distortion and noise, general system specifications, and other topics; (6) Testing the Language Laboratory; and (7) Servicing and Maintaining the Language Laboratory. This publication sets forth conclusions reached by representatives of education and the electronics industry concerning many pedagogical and technical matters which affect the ultimate consumer--the student of modern foreign languages. Appended is a sample procurement specification. (Contains 89 footnotes and 23 figures.) [Best copy available has been provided.]