Podcasts in the Classroom

Podcasts are a great way for people to get their ideas across and basically make their own television or radio shows on their own.  There are many different ways that a teacher can incorporate Podcasts into their lesson plans.  A teacher can use it as a media source or source of educational entertainment in English to help stimulate motivation.  For example a teacher can create an assignment that asks the students to listen to a podcast about a theme or topic that interests them, then the teacher can have them create their own podcast on a subject of interest.  Activities like this can be a fun way for students to practice their listening and speaking skills in English in an authentic manner that holds their interest and keeps them motivated in their learning.


In addition to using Podcasts for media learning sources, there are also many Podcasts available that are ESL specific.  I listened to the Podcast English Cafe 446 on the website ESL Pod.  This Podcast was about the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.  It consisted of several vocabulary words about animals and science.  It included the narration of the "teacher" as well as interview clips with members of the scientific community behind La Brea.  The interviewees would talk about the actions of the pit and the teacher would then describe the language and vocabulary which included spelling out words for the listeners. The Podcast also included a question and answer period after the main lecture.  A Podcast like this can be a great asset to the ESL classroom, a teacher can build lesson plans around certain themes such as animal science vocabulary.  Or more likely there are other themes of Podcasts similar to this one that are a little more likely such as famous songs, organizing your house or famous Americans.