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 Tuesday May 03 2005

ESL podcasting

I’ve been hearing the term podcasting for some time and never really understood the appeal. It’s basically somebody talking and recording their thoughts in audio format. You can’t skim it, you can’t quote it without transcribing, and you can’t print it. Additionally there is the issue of space and bandwidth for most people. With my host, I have no problems - 5 gb of space and 300gb of transfer is a good deal. I have changed host to Site5.com

I noticed that a few EFL teachers have started podcasts for thier students. Graham links to Charles Kellys podcasts which I don’t find particularly useful as it is primarly nursery rhymes which I don’t see being motivating for adult learners. I know someone will say what about kids? and to that I say, children who enjoy nursery rhymes are not old enough to be surfing the net and studying English. There are however a couple of good sites around.


Graham has started a blog about podcasting in ESL/EFL which is more of a meta approach discussing available resources and whether there is any value in it. This is a yahoo 360 blog and apparantly requires you to have a yahoo360 account. Fortunately I have one and am able to view his site. Graham has invitations available if you are interested (at this point I don’t).

Probably the best site available is The Daily Idiom. I will probably be informing my students about that site if they are interested in practicing listening on their own and learning idioms.

Comprehensible Input also has a podcasting blog titled Comprehensible Input: The Podcast though it doesn’t appear to be about ELT. He also has a post about educational podcasting in Canada.

If you are interested in running your own podcast and have your own web site space you will want to check out Loud Blog a CMS for podcasting. I’m not sure if I will get into podcasting myself, but I have asked on the Expression Engine forums if it is possible to have integrated podcasting in the same way that loud blog works.

update
I did some searching around and found a good thread with information about royalty free music over at podcasting alley: Royalty Free Music for your Podcasts and check the comments below for more info as well…


Sean. inscribed these words of wisdom on Tuesday May 3, 2005 at 10:41 PM
Podcasting | Teaching | useful_web_sites |

Picture of Graham

Graham wrote 139 words  on  Friday May 6, 2005  at  07:41 PM Spain

Hi ********

I’m really excited about podcasting - I’ve been listening to quite a few now and can see that there’s a great potential for students, if only we can figure out how best to do it.

I’m determined to give it a go, and I can see by your post that others are too - should be exciting to see how it develops. I’m looking forward to listening to Blinger’s first podcast too : I think there’s a demand for what you post about to be turned into a weekly podcast. For example, I don’t have time to read as many blogs / websites as I’d like to. However, I’ve been downloading podcasts and listen to them on the train, and while I’m walking around the city.

I find it an engaging, entertaining way to learn about things.

Sean.

Sean. wrote 178 words  on  Friday May 6, 2005  at  08:31 PM Korea (South)

Graham,
I edited my real name out of your comment. I’m interested in learning more about podcasting myself. Any podcasts I listen to will be on my computer as I do not have an MP3 player and am not in the market for one.

I can see the appeal of listening to broadcasts on the train. If the podcaster is good, it would definately be better than pop-music. Did you listen to Comprehensible Inputs podcast? I thought it was well done and well paced. The author/podcaster also has a good voice for broadcast.

Making podcasts wouldn’t be a problem, I would use audacity as it is quite easy to use, but if I was to do it I would want to add some funky opening and closing music as well as the occasional sound effect for humor. sound bites are easy enough to find, but would you know where to find background music to use for opening and closing credits?

One last thing, Graham, I tried to visit you blog just now but I’m getting a 404 error…

Picture of Graham

Graham wrote 177 words  on  Saturday May 7, 2005  at  04:14 AM Spain

Hi again!

I’ve been playing around with Audacity too, and will probably try and put my first podcast together this weekend (if the translation work I have to do doesn’t eat up all my time!)

You’re right about the music - the podcasts I’ve been listening too use something that they call ‘podsafe’ music, which is music that the artist lets them use in return for mentioning / linking to their website, etc.

The main source of this seems to be :
http://www.garageband.com/

It would be fun, I think, on a podcast for students, to sometimes include a song in English and provide an accompanying exercise related to the song.

Of course, we can’t all cater to all levels of students - I suppose I’m going to select one group to try out.

Would you be interested in preparing a podcast for students, or one (similar to your blog) for teachers?

I haven’t had a chance to listen to the Comprehensible Input site yet, but I will do when I get home tonight.

Have a good weekend

Sean.

Sean. wrote 64 words  on  Saturday May 7, 2005  at  09:30 AM Korea (South)

Graham,
Thanks for the link, I’ll definately check it out. I am interested in podcasting, I’m not sure if it will be student or teacher oriented. I just purchased two domains

http://eslcast.com

and

http://eflpodcast.com

At this point I’m not ready to do anything with the domains but this summer after I finish my essays and graduate from my MA program I’ll start something up.

Sean.

Sean. wrote 99 words  on  Saturday May 7, 2005  at  08:50 PM Korea (South)

Well I looked at garageband but I can’t seem to find where it says the music is free to use as you want. It’s free to download, but I"m not sure about cutting it up and remixing it into my podcast.

I did find the internet audio archive audio archiveand it does seem promising

This collection hosts complete, freely downloadable/streamable, often Creative Commons-licensed catalogs of ‘virtual record labels’.

These ‘netlabels’ are non-profit, community-built entities dedicated to providing high quality, non-commercial, freely distributable MP3/OGG-format music

I will continue to look until I find a definitive answer and report back later.

Picture of James Chiou

James Chiou wrote 44 words  on  Sunday May 8, 2005  at  05:18 PM Europe

I think although Charles Kelly’s podcasts are not easy enough for those non-computer-literate children, the teachers or parents can still make some good use of them.

So the target audience would be the adults who want to use those podcasts to teach/entertain their kids. smile

Sean.

Sean. wrote 18 words  on  Sunday May 8, 2005  at  08:37 PM Korea (South)

James,

Good point. I didn’t really think about that, I was focusing on my students all university age.

Picture of Graham

Graham wrote 77 words  on  Sunday May 8, 2005  at  10:28 PM Spain

Hi again

If you look at the Garage Band site, there’s a link at the bottom for those interested in webcasts / poodcasts - it depends on the artist, but a lot of the songs too have Creative Commons licenses, although it will be difficult for you to find an artist willing to let you cut up and mess around with their music, you can certainly find an instrumental track that could serve as an intor, etc.

Picture of Robert

Robert wrote 67 words  on  Tuesday May 10, 2005  at  02:08 AM Japan

Hi,

Podcasting is going to be great for students, as soon as more teachers start producing them. I did the first EFL/ESL one, called The Daily Idiom, and have been very pleased with the response. I’ve also created the first, and so far only, EFL/ESL podcast site called Englishcaster for teachers and students to list their podcasts: http://www.englishcaster.com

Check it out and tell me what you think.

Picture of Robert

Robert wrote 36 words  on  Wednesday May 11, 2005  at  12:20 AM Japan

I encouraged Sean at http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com to put his audio lessons into podcast form and I’m now happy to report that he has succeeded. Congrats, Sean!  I’ve now added his link to http://www.englishcaster.com

Bob
The Daily Idiom

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