An experiment involving two groups of 193 beginning secondary school students of French, German, and Spanish considers the instructional value of the electronic classroom as an alternative to the conventional language laboratory for the presentation of exercise materials. Experimental design hypotheses state that since more practice is possible with recorded materials in the electronic laboratory than in the language laboratory, students using the former achieve more in listening, speaking, and reading skills. The experimental design includes discussion of the Modern Language Aptitude Test (MLAT), the Pimsleur Foreign Language Proficiency Tests, and the six-week interval unit tests. Extensive review of statistical analysis procedures, frequently accompanied by tables, favors the electronic classroom in 27 of 31 criterion-measured observable differences. A bibliography is furnished. (RL)