Reflection on Listening and Speaking with CALL: Podcasts

There are many ways to integrate the language skills of listening and speaking with CALL tools. In this blog post I will restrict my reflection to the use of podcasts and its teaching and learning potential.

We discussed the use of podcasts for teaching pronunciation in class. It seems that the researchers who conducted this study were hoping that repeated recordings with the podcasts would draw learners attention to pronunciation in order to get them to improve it while presenting on a study abroad theme.

I'm not so sure having learners create podcasts in order to evaluate aspects of their language production is the best use of the technology. Rather, I see it more applicable to task-based approaches where learners podcast is used to create a desired outcome. Through the process of creating the podcasts there will be an opportunity to focus on form, but it is not likely that learners will improve their pronunciation or lexical/grammatical accuracy through such a project alone.

Paul Nation has discussed how language teaching should include four different strands: language-focused input, language-focused output, fluency, and language-focused learning. I feel like podcasts are more appropriate for the language-focused output. If I were to have learners engage in language-focused learning, on say, pronunciation features of language, I would consider using a type of pronunciation software instead.