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?
There are four skills that we have
to master in learning English; they are reading, speaking, listening and
writing. To master all those skills, we have to be accustomed to practice. Blogging
is one of the tools to improve our ability in English, especially in writing
skill. Some English learners are difficult to write because they seldom
practice writing. Others might be afraid of making mistakes in writing such as
grammar, punctuation and so on. Moreover, when we are posting something in our
blog, we will think much about the errors in it because it can be seen and
commented by anyone. However, we do not need to think much about it. We will
never be able to write if we always think about the errors in our writing. Our
errors and the comments of our writing will improve our next writing.
b.Enrich learners’
English vocabulary
When we are writing, we often do not
know about certain vocabulary that we are going to write. We will look up our
dictionary and find the vocabulary that we do not know. In this case, we are
enriching our vocabulary. Fancy that if we are writing 20 postings in our blog
and each posting has 10 new vocabularies. How many vocabularies that we will
get after writing? How if we always keep writing something in our blog?
Therefore, blogging can enrich our vocabulary.
We
realize that English that we are learning is not our first language. Therefore,
we sometimes get trouble in understanding it. English has four skills;
speaking, writing, reading and listening, which are always connected with three
elements; grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. And the most important thing
that the English learners should have is sights and experiences. Those are
required by all of the English learners. Many English learners are difficult to
master all of those things. We often find some students being able to speak
fluently but they are lack of structures. They cannot arrange their sentences
grammatically so that what they are speaking is difficult to understand. And
many students are not confident to write because they are lack of vocabulary
and grammar. Not only this but also we often find students not being able to
understand it at all.
Rasau Jaya is one of Kubu Raya regency.
It is wide enough and there are many inhabitants there. We can say Rasau Jaya
is a developing place. They are interested in building buildings. There are
many new buildings that we can see if we go there. They do not care much about
how big their buildings are. They use those buildings variously. Some use them
as the place to stay with family, some use them to store things, some use them
to both stay and store things and some others use them as other functions such
as school, English courses, Computer courses, Bank and so on. Those things make
Rasau Jaya crowded.
It was Sunday. I never get up early on
Sundays. I sometimes stay in bed until 10 o’clock. Last Sunday I got up very
late. I did not realize that it was already 11 o’clock. I really enjoyed
sleeping with beautiful dreaming so that I forgot everything.
Eko was a junior high
school student. He was in grade three at that time. He was lazy but tricky. He
seldom studied his lessons but he always passed the test given by his teachers.
He seldom followed his teachers’ suggestion. When his teachers asked him to
study, he just said ‘yes sir, I will’, but he did not study at all. It was very
useless to suggest the boy like him. He just counted on his friends’ help when
he got problem with his lessons.
