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Blogs and podcasts for improving
communication skills
We live in a global world where communication demands have dramatically
changed over the past decades and where EFL has acquired a central position.
English has thus become a lingua franca that everyone needs to learn in order
to communicate globally and this has been reflected in many educational systems
around the world, where English has acquired the position of first foreign
language.
Want to improve your English, but don’t want to
look at any more textbooks?
If so, I’ve got the answer you’ve been searching for –
English podcasts.
What is a podcast?
The word derives
from the words “iPod” and “broadcast”. Podcasts are basically radio programs
that can be downloaded onto an MP3 player or listened to directly from your
computer at any time. They are a great way of catching up on radio programs and
practicing your listening skills. I often listen to podcasts whilst cooking,
ironing, gardening or doing my nails! A lot of people listen to podcasts on
their way to and back from work, at the gym, running, jogging, gardening and so
on. The beauty of podcasts is that you can multi-task while improving your
listening skills.
Why Learn with English Podcasts?
English
language podcasts are an excellent way to learn English quickly.
You can
listen to them anytime anywhere – at your desk or while you’re on the move.
What better way to pass the time during a long commute than by immersing
yourself in an entertaining podcast?
With a
little dedication, English language podcasts will help you quickly improve your
listening skills and proficiency. One perk (benefit) is that podcasts often
have transcripts (a written version of the audio). This means that you can
listen and read at the same time, or look at a transcript if one part of a
podcast confuses you.
Podcasts
in English (iTunes – website)
Variety is
the spice of life and that’s exactly what these terrific podcasts give you –
spoken English in an assortment of settings. Who said language learning
can’t be fun and exciting?
Podcasts in
English.com is a comprehensive English language learning podcast series with programs
for beginners, intermediates and upper intermediates. There are also podcasts
for those who need to use business English. The short lessons are conducted
entirely in English and feature conversations between two English language
speakers. They cover a broad range of topics encompassing nearly every facet of
life. Some of the subjects you may hear being discussed are the Winter
Olympics, horse riding experiences and Facebook. The podcasts are short,
challenging and supported by transcripts, worksheets and vocabulary tasks.
Blogs
and podcasts have been very positively valued in what respects the
development of the students’ communicative skills. Podcasts can be used in the
EFL classroom to improve students’ listening skills –students listen to podcast
already available online– or to improve students’ oral production and
pronunciation skills – students create their own podcast based on examples
online. Giving a further step, Guzzo de Almeida (s.d.), Hung (2011) and Hsu,
Wang and Comac (2008), for example, suggested linking blogs and podcasts to
design meaningful projects for the students. The study was carried out in a
public secondary school of Alcobendas (Madrid). We worked with a group of 19
students of 1st of Bachillerato1 enrolled in the subject Ampliación de
Lengua Extranjera I –a subject that revolves around the development of oral skills
according to its syllabus (BOCM [Official Gazette of the Region of Madrid] on
the 29th July 2008). It should be noted that this school offers a bilingual
program in German and that most students enrolled in this subject were part of
this bilingual program – their first foreign language was German and not
English. Nevertheless, these students had also been studying English during all
this time as their second foreign language. The study was designed as a case
study in order to see the effect of certain activities based on the use of
authentic materials and ICTs – namely blogs and podcasts– in the development of
students’ oral skills. The study was divided in three parts: (1) a pre-study
analysis in which the proficiency (listening and speaking skills) of students
was measured, (2) the development of a series of innovative activities based on
blogs and podcasts (the treatment), (3) a post-study analysis to measure the
proficiency after the treatment. Moreover, some relevant information about the
students was collected after the treatment to correlate it with the study
results –i.e. Marks, contact with the language outside the classroom, cultural
level of the parents and other sociolinguistic information. The treatment
consisted in the creation of a radio station located on a blog specifically
designed for this purpose (https://radiostationginer.wordpress.com/). The
students were asked to record four different types of radio programs (a news
broadcast, a debate, a short story and a commercial) in each of the four
sessions in which the treatment took place. Before creating the radio program,
the students were provided with a series of authentic podcasts of the same
genre they had to replicate and they were asked to listen to some of them in
order to become familiar with the genre. Afterwards, they were asked to act
them out –I.e. the news broadcast and the commercials– or to design some new
ones –I.e. the storytelling broadcast and the debate–, recording them as a new
podcast. These podcasts were later uploaded to the blog, where all students
could have access to them and see what their classmates had done.
As we
previously discussed, the main aim of this study was to see if there was an
improvement in students’ oral skills after implementing a series of activities
based on the use of authentic materials and ICTs.
So, Are you looking for new ways to improve your
English communication skills?
Here are 3 easy ways:
1.
Listen to English Speaking Shows
Find an
interesting TV show, radio show, or even podcast that you can listen to both at
home and on the go. Spend as much of your downtime as possible listening to
spoken English. ITunes offers a great variety of hour long podcasts that you
can directly download to your mp3 player. Listening to spoken English will help
you improve your improve your vocabulary, learn better sentence
structure and make learning the correct pronunciation of difficult words even
easier.
2.
Start a Blog
Use your
hobbies, field of study or career path to help you learn English. While you may
have a solid foundation in reading, writing and speaking in English, there will
be many words that are specific to your hobbies, studies or career that will
not come up in everyday conversations or during your English classes. To master
these interest specific words, try writing a regular blog about subjects
related to your field of study, interests or career path. Even if you are just
summarizing articles in English, you will quickly become familiar with the
English translations of words that you are already familiar with in your
native language.
3.
Use Ginger’s English Personal Trainer
Ginger’s English Personal Trainer keeps track of the mistakes that you make
while writing both in MS Office and online in your browser and uses these
errors to determine which are your weakest areas of English. Ginger will
present you with personalized lessons based on your weak areas to help you fix
your problematic areas of English.
For those of you who simply enjoy listening to spoken
English and want to keep up with your English, I would recommend these
following podcasts:
BBC Radio 4
I love
Radio 4, especially their comedies and dramas. There are 150 podcasts that are
easily available. Here are some of my favourites:
The Archers Omnibus – The Archers is the world’s longest running soap
opera, offering essential drama from the heart of the country. The full week’s
events are available every Sunday.
Drama of the Week – Every Friday you can enjoy an hour of the best
storytelling.
Comedy of the Week – On Mondays you can catch up with a variety of
comedians that will brighten your week.
TED Talks
“Ideas worth
spreading”. This is TED’s motto and they have been sharing inspiring talks
about a variety of topics since 1984. The length of the talks vary from 3
minutes to 18 minutes and transcripts are available.
British English
Luke’s
English Podcast – Luke is a qualified English language teacher and stand-up
comedian who provide an award-winning, engaging and entertaining podcast
series. His intention is to “make you
laugh while you learn” and he provides a rich mix of subject material.
For many of
the podcasts Luke is the sole narrator, although real-life conversations
sometimes occur. He has a warm, engaging voice that draws in the listener. His
stories are fun and interesting. The English is spoken at normal speed and
transcripts are available.