4. Podcasting: A Means to Teach ESL

Integral University,

Abstract

Podcasting: A Means to Teach ESL

Amna Shamim,

Assistant Professor in English,

Lucknow

amna_2036@yahoo.co.in

Acquiring a language is not an easy task as it requires a lot of continuous effort and rigorous training. With the advancement in technology, new and innovative methods are employed to make learning fun and effortless. Teachers are constantly involved in researching over the different techniques they can adopt in the classroom that would make their students fluent in learning the language. The focus of this paper is upon improving the proficiency of English of the Indian students through podcasting. The easily accessible audio files can help the learners in pronunciation, articulation and vocabulary building in a novel way. For better understanding of the learners, podcasts can be used with transcripts too. The types of podcasts used by the teachers depend upon the age group and on the level of learning of the learners.

It has been a couple of years since podcasting has come to become a part of the teaching environment. With the advancement of technology in education, new and innovative methods have been developed and applied by the teachers in their classrooms to make learning fun for the learners. Podcast is an audio or video (also called as vodcast) recording made available online that can be listened to at any place and at any time on an MP3 player or on a personal computer. The word “Podcast” has been derived from the words “broadcast” and “iPod”. iPod is an MP3 player from Apple Inc. but there is no connection as such between the two in the context of the purpose. The learners or the listeners do not even need an apple device or software to listen to the recordings. Podcast is basically used as an audio recording that can be accessed with the help of internet and can even be downloaded for future use.

In the words of Graham Stanley, “Podcasting as a language learning technology became popular in 2005 as ‘an alternative way of providing 'radio' type content that can be listened to whenever, wherever and as many times as the listener wants’” (2005). There are three types of podcasts used at present. First is the audio podcast that is the basic one. It is the easiest to create and use. Second being an audio with slide presentation, similar to a narrated Power Point Presentation on the Web. Third kind of podcast is, though difficult, but the most interesting one for the learners. It is a combination of video and audio recording and is difficult to create. These podcasts are used in the educational realm to create and distribute the lectures, to deliver the supplementary educational material, and are also used by the facilitators to give assignments to the students to produce their own podcasts, hence providing a creative platform for the learners alongside educating them.

Some podcasts are produced to be used only once, whereas others are produced serial-wise. ‘One-time podcasts’ are created on one topic and in ‘serial-podcasts’, the creator produces episodes in lieu with the previous one. To be able to receive the episodes of the chosen podcast, the listener should subscribe to a feed that downloads and sends all the future podcasts of the series to the listener without him/her having to beat their brains about it. It is more like listening to one’s favourite news paper columnist daily. There should not be any confusion with the usual audio/visual files available on the internet to the files considered as podcasts. Some people use the word ‘podcast’ for ‘audio-visual files’ too. Although both are quite different as one has to subscribe to the feed to be able to access the future contents of the podcast whereas there is no such subscription available for the general audio/video files found on the internet.

There is a galore of podcasts on the internet that one can choose from. Other than using it in business, it is also used in the education sphere. Podcasts not only provide educational benefits to the normal students but also provides ease to the differently-abled students. Podcasts turn out to be a boon for the students who miss out on lectures or who are not able to retain all the information provided to them in a classroom in one sitting. While on the go, the recorded lectures could be listened to by the students; saving their time that they can utilize fruitfully. In one of the surveys conducted by T. Bell, students commented on the use of podcasts, “it is attractive for education because it potentially enables students to increase the number of hours of studying without necessarily having to remove something from their schedule such as doing household chores, or exercising” (2007).

In case of online or distance learning, this method of teaching plays an integral part in teaching the content to the learner who is not physically present in the classroom. According to Lee and Chan (2007), podcasts not only enhances the learning of the students in distance mode but also improves the learning process of others. It has been analyzed that a language learning class can become more effective with the help of aids like podcasts. Some of the ways in which the facilitator can enhance the learning process of the learners are:

After a class of Phonetics, students can be assigned a task of submitting their recordings on the given content. The recordings done by the students can then be sent to the instructors for reviewing in the form of podcasts. This will not only save the time of the students but also the instructors will get time to assess the pronunciation and the articulation of the students at ease.

A magazine-style podcast that is supported by a wide variety of materials (transcripts, exercises, etc) which makes it ideal for language learners.

BBC podcasts

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts

Perhaps the largest collection of authentic podcasts on the web.