iPods and Podcasting

The potential of podcasting for motivating and engaging young language learners is being researched in innovative projects and individual experiments around the UK :

In Gracemount High School , Edinburgh , the languages department uses iPods to record:

speaking tests
interviews in class
whole lessons for absent pupils
vocabulary lists

The resources are then put on the school website for pupils to access in school and at home.

At Astley Community School in Northumberland, language teachers create podcasts to help pupils revise for their GCSE speaking tests. The pupils themselves are coming up with ideas, such as scripting and recording their own soap opera, called ‘Le feuilleton à soixante secondes’.

At Newcastle University, Andrew Grenfell and David Lowe, from the Language Centre, call their podcasts ‘Linguacasts’ and host them on their own Linguacast website. Undergraduates from the University are making podcasts for local secondary school pupils, to revise wordlists and dialogues in French. Read more about the Linguacast project on the Schools Enterprise Euromarché website.

Samantha Dernley, a German teacher from Egglescliffe School, Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, has posted some podcasts she made with her pupils on her eggdeutsch blog. She says, ‘I am hoping to encourage peer assessment through the blog, as I am sure that other students will be interested in listening to them’.

Languages teacher Adam Sutcliffe, from The Gordon Schools in Huntly, Aberdeenshire, has created French and German vocab guides for his KS3 pupils. They can be downloaded from the TGS MFL Homework blog.

Lynne Horn, Principal Teacher of the Language Faculty, Tobermory High School, has put up some podcasts made by her pupils while practising dialogue work.

Primary schools are also making good use of podcasting:

Woodhill Primary School in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire, has set up a podcasting project to help pupils in two Year 6 classes to learn French. The French teacher and her classroom assistant have recorded podcasts for the pupils to download and listen to at home and at school, with accompanying exercises to support the sound files. The pupils have recorded their impressions of using technology to enhance their language learning, on the school blog. Principal teacher, Susan Buchanan will discuss the findings of the project to date, in the session To blog or not to blog, at the Scottish learning festival SETT on September 21 2006.

Mr Sinclair from St John’s Primary in Edinburgh has posted some podcasts he made with his two primary classes on his Fantastic ideas blog.

If you are interested in these ideas, but feel you need help to get started, plenty of advice is available:

Apple, the makers of the iPod, has produced a free DVD called Podcasting in Education. The three part video series includes:

the basics of podcasting
how to use podcasting to meet national standards
how administrators are using podcasting to improve education and to communicate with parents and the community

To apply for a copy, visit the Apple website.

Using podcasts in the classroom is an article written by French coordinator Joe Dale which appears on the TES ICT blog. It includes practical advice on where to download MFL podcasts, as well as suggesting how to make your own. On his own blog, Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom, Joe describes some of the podcasting projects above in more detail.

Although these are early days, podcasts for learning languages are starting to take off. Pupils like making them and teachers can use them to support their pupils both at school and at home. Why not listen to the evidence here and decide if you think podcasting could be a useful tool for you and your pupils?

Languages ICT

iPods and Podcasting