Podcasting
What is a podcast?
Podcasts are broadcasts that you can play on your iPod, hence the name. However, you don’t need an iPod to listen to or create podcasts. You can listen to them by clicking a link online or even get them delivered automatically to play on your PC or Mac every time there is a new show.
There are thousands of podcasts out there covering a myriad of subjects, including comedy shows, and many of the programmes from the BBC are available as podcasts, too. If you’ve ever wanted to learn a new language or find a different way to learn vocabulary or grammar, podcasts allow listening to take place anywhere, any time. Take a look at the MFLE podcast guide to see some of what’s out there.
Turning the class into the studio
If you can get your students to record their voices, music or sounds and publish this audio online as a podcast, there is a huge return for the learners. In a communicative subject such as modern foreign languages, podcasts offer an authentic audience for your students’ spoken work and offer your students a different way to learn, either listening to material created for them or creating their own lessons and resources for the class.
This MFLE guide aims to show how to make basic recordings and put them on the web as podcasts. There are also some ideas for their use in the MFL classroom to get you started.