Podcasting

What is podcast?

A podcast is an audio file that anyone can create using computer, microphone, and software program. It is used to improve learners’ pronunciation. It is also used to hear the learners’ own pronunciation and judge the nativelikeness of their speech. It could offer opportunities for contextualizing tasks, while at the same time honing pronunciation.

How can podcasting be useful for learning languages?

·   The students need teachers to teach them languages. However, the teachers and the students are sometimes absent from the class. The absence of the class can cause missed information. This podcast can serve to distribute the missed information.

·   When we listen to the native speakers, we always get difficult to understand them. Here we need to be accustomed to listening to them. Podcasting can be useful to empower our ability in listening.

·   By podcasting we can hear our voice ourselves. We can judge our ability in spelling the language learnt. We can record the teachers’ speech and we can hear the teachers’ recording many times as well.

·   Podcasting is important to determine instructional goals and keep the emphasis on pedagogy. In keeping these objectives in mind, practice with pronunciation, listening, and speaking are specific ways that foreign language teachers and learners can tap into this technological tool. Using podcasting in contextualized language learning can also be useful in that it allows teachers to contextualize pronunciation and create meaningful tasks, rather than simply have students repeat and practice lists of words or sounds.

·   Podcasts also remained available as references for students to revisit and work on individual pronunciation issues.

·   Results indicate that students perceived listening to the podcasts as worthwhile and enjoyable.

·         After giving task to record the students’ own podcasting: Over the course of the semester, from the pre- to the post-test, 50% of students improved their accent.

·         There was also an improvement of 44% of students from the first to the second extemporaneous tasks in comprehensibility and accentedness.

·         Another supplement to podcasting tasks could be computer-assisted visual feedback. With appropriate training, students could visually and aurally compare their sounds to improve specific trouble areas.

·         Podcasts can be recorded for a specific purpose and audience. In addition, more classroom practice in prosody, including pronunciation practice in context, would be useful to students. This type of practice could be accomplished by having students repeat longer discourse by drawing students’ attention to prosody during communicative tasks, and by including prosody as a component in assessment.