Pros and Cons of a Class Podcast Project
Kristen Sullivan – Shimonoseki City University
JALT 2006, Sunday 12:05-12:30
Podcasting provides unforeseen chances to encourage extensive listening.
But it also has great potential for developing students’ speaking skills.
☆ Digital recording holds much potential for working on students’ spoken English:
Ø Motivation to speak in English: sharing their work, staying on task, staying in the target language
Ø Consciousness raising and feedback
Ø Confidence building
☆ Podcasting is a promising medium for this IF it is used according to the “true nature/philosophy” of spoken language and the radio.
◎ Multiple, short term “projects”
◎ Different group members/individual work.
◎ Ensure multiple opportunities for recording = multiple opportunities for feedback
◎ Avoid over preparation for the podcast = encourage adlibbing and talking from point form. Use techniques actually used in radio (pre-recording chat, rehearsals, “ネタ合わせ”).
◎ Give students greater physical access to the technology and their recordings (dependent upon financial and physical resources, but extremely important).
◎ Give chances for class level presentations and feedback.
◎ Be flexible and constantly evaluate! Be able to identify the unfolding classroom constraints and needs and adapt to these.
◎ Use recording technology according to your actual class aims.
Two ways to make podcasts/your own listening materials
1 Recording your podcast:
A: Using an IC recorder. But note that you must convert the file to mp3 format if you wish to edit it using Audacity!! I personally use Olympus IC recorders. Recorders that record in stereo have the best quality, and new ones can also be used as mp3 players. Beware that the recording quality of cheaper recorders can be disappointing (static etc). Be careful when holding/placing your recorder.
à Record your podcast. Save the file onto your computer. If you do not need to
edit you can burn it straight onto a CD using Windows Media Player. If you
need to edit or if you wish to put it on the net you need to change the format to mp3. You can do this using LAME AudioEncoder (free software off the net). Once it is in mp3 format you can edit using Audacity (free software off the net).
B: Recording using your computer (you need a microphone and Audacity).
à Record directly onto your computer. You can edit using Audacity (and also incorporate music, sound effects etc). You can save as an Audacity file, but if you want to burn to CD or put on the Internet you need to export your file in WAV or mp3 format. Note that to export in mp3 format you also need to download LAME AudioEncoder.
2 Putting your podcast on the Internet. To put on the Internet you can use your own website or any porthole site that hosts podcasts (just search under podcast/podcasting on the net). To convert your audio file use LAME AudioEncoder. (Although I heard at a different presentation that you can also do this using iTunes, but I have not tried it myself). To convert your audio file to wma format (for streaming on the Internet) use Windows Media Encoder, available free from the Microsoft homepage.