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Podcasts: just another high-techhype?The word Podcast has been declaredword of the year by the New OxfordAmerican Dictionary (BBC News athttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technol-ogy/4504256.stm). The term is de-fined as “a digital recording of a radiobroadcast or similar program, madeavailable on the internet for down-loading to a personal audio player”.The word is derived from a combina-tion of “broadcasting” and “iPod”.An iPod, for those who don’t knowyet, is the popular small MP3 musicplayer produced by Apple.Apple has included Podcasts in theiriTunes programme. This is a programyou can download and install for freeon both Macs and PCs. iTunes is amusic player, but it is also a pro-gramme that allows you to downloadmusic legally in the Apple music store.The idea of a podcast is that you canlisten to a programme any time anyplace on your MP3 player, be it walk-ing your dog, sitting on a bus or in atrain or while driving your car. Newcar stereos now come with a USB-connection, but your MP3 players canalso be easily connected to older carstereo’s cassette recorders by meansof a dedicated cassette that connectsto your MP3 player. Teachers whohave an iPod or MP3 player can ofcourse also connect their iPod to thestereo they use to play tapes or CDs inclass. Finally, you can often downloadthe podcasts and burn them on a CD.

Podcasts and language learningSince iPods are very popular amongteenagers and many of them have anMP3 player of one kind or another ,podcasts may be recommended for

Podcasts: new materials forteaching listening comprehension*

giving students additional exposureto the spoken language, somethingthey often lack in the regular class-room. If students have specific inter-ests, they may find podcasts on manydifferent subjects. This makes it pos-sible to cater for individual tastes.Rather than pointing out specificpodcasts in selected areas such assports or high-tech, I’d recommendtelling your students where they canfind a podcast that may possibly inter-est them, for instance in the iTunespodcast selection.Podcasts do not differ fundamentallyfrom texts spoken on cassettes or CDs.Teachers have always recorded pro-grammes from the radio or the internetonto a cassette or a CD. With podcastsit is just easier. You subscribe to apodcast and each time an update (anew instalment or a new programme)is available it is automatically down-loaded to your computer. If you thinkit is suitable you can keep it, or youjust delete it. So you do not have to beat home or program your recorder, itis all done automatically.In the Apple music store you can go tothe podcast section, which shows youa lot of available podcasts. If you arein search of a podcast in another lan-guage, say you live in Switzerland,but want English language podcasts,you can access e.d. the UK musicstore and subscribe to a podcast in theUK store.

Some examples suitable forlanguage learningPodcasts I personally like very muchare BBC-programs such as From OurOwn Correspondent (FOOC) or Inour Time. The latter is a fairly intel-lectual programme suitable only for

the higher levels and in academiclearning contexts. FOOC contains fouror five rather short (4-8 minute) re-ports from all over the world on agreat variety of topics, often related toworld news, but generally with a spe-cific emphasis. I think they are excel-lent stuff for practising listening com-prehension at let’s say the B1 leveland upwards. You will find them athttp://bbc.co.uk/radio/downloadtrial/subscribe.shtml. This site also con-tains technical information and helpon downloading podcasts.Learners listening to English gener-ally would like some help wheneverthey have not understood a particularsection or word. Some podcasts comewith transcripts, so that you can listenand read the transcript.Some American podcasts especiallydesigned for language learning oftenuse slow speech. This is the case withthe English as a Second LanguagePodcast at http://feeds.feedburner.com/EnglishAsAsecondLanguagePodcast, but also available in the SwissApple store. However, this artificiallyslowed down speech will not be ap-preciated by all students.National Public Radio is an excellentsource for American English. ‘Story ofthe Day’ is interesting and usually short(4 to 6 minutes) (http://www. npr.org/rss/podcast.php?id=1090&uid=eff80d46a1b7860e35cf4759f9b37dd2).‘To the best of our knowledge’ is alsoquite good, in that it features a weeklyinterview with some interesting per-sonalities from science, literature, etc.(http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast.phpid=510011&uid=f39cbe3cf7db5718164e7e0980c4be27) but it is a bit long.Flo-Joe, the site that helps studentwith the Cambridge exams, has a funpodcast which is designed as a radioshow. A real challenge for even C1

Gé StoksLocarno

Babylonia 4/0547 www.babylonia.ch

learners, very natural, complete withad-libbing and jokes and irony atwww.splendid-learning.co.uk/podcast/index.html

Using podcasts in classA podcast may be used just to providemotivated students with additionallanguage input. However, if you wishto use them in class you need to spendtime on selecting suitable ones anddevelop tasks and activities to guideyour students in the listening process.These often involve activities to mobi-lize the students’ prior knowledge ofthe subject of the podcast (pre-listen-ing activity), some while-listening ac-tivities and some post-listening activi-ties. For the while-listening activitiessome true-false questions the studentscan check while listening also helpthem to concentrate on the text. In thepost-listening stage you can focus onspecific vocabulary items and –if avail-able- hand out the transcript.Since checking listening comprehen-sion is often rather tiresome in class, Irecommend asking students to an-swer the questions while listening andcompare their answers with a class-mate afterwards. If they have differ-ent answers a second listening be-comes far more interesting, since theywill focus on the items on which theyhad different answers. This is, by theway, a technique useful for any listen-ing comprehension activity and notonly for podcasts.

Making your own podcastIt is not too difficult to make your ownpodcast. In fact, many podcasts avail-able are not professionally made andyou hear it right away! The quality isoften rather poor and the contents farless interesting than the ones that areprofessionally produced. If you areinterested in creating your own podcastor having your students make one,you can find the necessary informa-tion on the internet.

Podcasts pour FLELa plupart des podcasts qu’on trouvesur internet sont en anglais. Toutefoispour français langue étrangère il y a leLille podcast, Communication et coursde francais pour les non-francophonesqui veulent améliorer leur niveau. Ontrouve ce podcast contenant aussi unetranscription du texte sur http://houzekat.free.fr/lillepodcast

Podcasts für Deutsch als Fremd-sprache (DaF)Die Deutsche Welle hat einen Podcast‚Langsam gesprochene Nachrichten(http://rss.dw-world.de/xml/podcast_langsam_gesprochene_nachrichten).Dieser Podcast gibt auch eine Trans-kription der Sendung zum mitlesenoder als Kontrolle nachher. Auch aufder Seite http://www.deutschlern.net/stehen einige Podcasts, Hier kann manauch den Podcast‚ Guter Umgang -Deutsch lernen mit der deutschenUmgangssprache‘ abonnieren.Viele technische Informationen undeine ganze Reihe deutschsprachigerPodcasts findet man auf der Seitewww.podcast.de.

Podcast per l’italiano lingue 2Per l’italiano non ho trovato moltipodcast. Una collezione molto inte-ressante sono i programmi della RSI

(Radio della Svizzera Italiana), messia disposizione come podcast sul sitowww.rtsi.ch/podcast. Specialmenteraccomandabile è il podcast ‘La Co-sta dei Barbari’ www.rtsi.ch/podcast/rss/costa_dei_ barbari.cfm. Però, pergodere appieno di questi programmioccorre un buon livello di padronanzadella lingua italiana.

VodcastFinally, vodcasting is the latest trend.It is a kind of video on demand. Youcan subscribe to a video and watch iteither on your computer or your videoiPod. I have not found anything thancommercial examples, such as aBMW-commercial. They are obvi-ously harder to produce profession-ally than just the audio podcasts. Inaddition, I believe in listening to mu-sic and podcast on a MP3 player, butwatching video? I wouldn’t…..

ConclusionIn this article I have tried to explainwhat a podcast is and how it can beused for listening comprehension ac-tivities either in class or by studentsindividually on their MP3 players.The text in a podcast does not differfundamentally from a text on a cas-sette or CD. Podcasts can make lifeeasier, but the selection of suitablepodcasts and the preparation of ac-companying materials will remain.

Note* I’d like to thank Catherine Richards andFrederick Jopling for their suggestions forusing podcasts for English language teaching.

Gé Stoksis a teacher trainer at the Alta Scuola Pedagogi-ca di Locarno and coordinator of the editorialteam of Babylonia.