Podcasts and EFL/ESL

As the academic year is almost over I have been putting down my thoughts on what has and has not worked in terms of the new teaching ideas I have used over the last nine months. A few days ago I talked about blogging and the classroom (mixed results),now it is the turn of podcasting.

Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to create any podcasts as of yet. The limits of a slow dial-up connection have meant that it still remains just a promising idea. There is little use creating material if it is going to take hours to upload it. However, I am hopeful that over the next year broadband will drop in price and become more available.

On the other hand I have been able to download podcasts from the net and have used them widely in my lessons with a reasonable degree of success. I mainly use stuff taken from professional sources such as the BBC, CNN etc rather than amateur podcasts but when I have the chance to download at faster speeds I will branch out more to see what else is out there.

I have also used various audio books (see Librivox) which have really helped my private students with their listening skills. They are an interesting (less painful?) alternative to traditional readers.

How I have used podcasts in my teaching

I used podiobooks such as Earthcore, Ancestor and The Pocket and The Pendant as a alternative to traditional readers in order to both expose students to a wider range of language than the course books offer and improve listening comprehension. Usually, the students listen to chapter every week and write a summary of what happens.

2 Short CNN, BBC podasts were used in class as the basis of various listening exercises (see previous posts). They have the advantage of being topical since you can use the latest news.

3 I used movie extracts downloaded from American Rhetoric to help improve pronunciation, by asking students to imitate the actors as closely as possible and record themselves.

4 I got students to use JFK and Martin Luther King's speeches as templates for their own.

5 I created a class podcast library on DVD which I asked students to copy and circulate. This was especially appreciated by students preparing for the higher level exams over Easter as the DVD had a wealth of extra listening material they could use.

6 I have also talked about other possible uses of podcasts on the blog over the year but I haven't had the chance to put use them in class yet. for example localising Orson Welle's War of The Worlds broadcast. i.e. downloading the script and the radio show and then changing the setting and time so that it become a Greek drama (no pun intended). This could then be rerecorded using the students voices.

As I now realise I have only just begun to utilise the possibilities of podcasts and podcasting. still, every journey starts with one step.

Problems faced

1 Most of the problems have been technical ones. First and foremost, the problem of access to the internet and the speed of connection put off most students from downloading stuff at home.

2 Lack of computer skills is another problem that keeps on cropping up again and again. There are time when I'd like to find a Computer Studies teacher and demand they give back the money they have "earned" "teaching" their students.

3 Mp3 players are still a novelty. While it is possible tolisten to podcasts on your PC the idea of sitting in front of a destop listening to a programme for half an hour is not appealing, it is most more useful for students to download this stuff onto an mp3 player and have it with them while doing something else such as walking to school, laying in bed etc. However, mp3 players are dropping in price and more and more mobile phones have mp3 capability so the technology is becoming more widely used.