Learning through podcasts (e-tivity 6)

Hi everyone!

‘What podcasting does is it lets me pick out those precise things I'm interested in’ – Steve Jobs, co-founder and chief executive officer of Apple

Podcasts are very useful sources available on the Internet. As you probably know, they are digital media files that you can watch or listen to directly from your computer or that you can download and then transfer to your mp3 player. These files have an important characteristic: they can be syndicated thanks to feeds so you can be informed when new material is added. If you want to get further information, please visit our course blog or click here.

The first time I heard about podcasts was a year ago, when my boyfriend bought his i-Pod. While I was using his mp3 player, I found these files in his playlist and I asked him about them. He told me he had downloaded the podcasts about his favourite radio or TV shows. I immediately thought that podcasts were wonderful tools! Anyway, I could appreciate them better thanks to my university course because I realized there’s a wide range of podcasts that can be useful for my language learning, especially for my listening and vocabulary. I can choose the files which I’m most interested in, such as English lessons, news, business English. Some years ago this was not possible!

I can do whatever I want with these files:

- watching or listening to them from my computer

- download them onto my computer and then upload onto my mp3 player

I prefer the second option because I can listen to podcasts (I haven’t a video-mp3 player and I can’t watch video files ;-) ) whenever I want. For example, yesterday I downloaded a podcast about business English and I listened to it while I was taking the dog for a walk. I must admit it’s great! I don’t have to spend time on the Internet or watch satellite TV in order to improve my English. Moreover, it’s a good alternative if I'm not at home.

I found four useful websites hosting podcasts and I subscribed to their feeds thanks to Bloglines. Every time a new content is added, Bloglines lets me know.

Here are the websites:

1. http://www.china232.com/

This website was created by two English teachers living in Shangai. The site contains a lot of interesting and fun podcasts that can be useful to improve my listening skills. The files deal with conversation about many different topics, such as university, diet, English pronunciation. Moreover, there’s a section dealing with business English, a section with many videos, a blog, a discussion forum. The podcasts are divided into different lessons, and every lesson is followed by the transcription of the conversation, and by phrases and words occurring in the lesson. A good way to improve my listening and vocabulary!

2. http://www.businessenglishpod.com/

This website deals with business English and targets intermediate and advanced business English learners. It’s very interesting because it hosts a lot of audio and video podcasts about different topics: marketing, job interviews, telephone calls, etc. The podcasts deal with different lessons. I think this site could be useful for a job in the future. The podcasts are followed by their transcription and by some questions useful to improve my learning.

3. http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/

This website deals with news, which I can listen to thanks to podcasts. I can also read their transcription and do the exercises advised by the website. There are a lot of listening exercises: pre-listening, listening, post-listening exercises. This could be useful to improve my comprehension and my vocabulary. Moreover, there are many exercises I can do to improve my writing. There's only a problem with this site: it doesn't use feeds.

4. http://edition.cnn.com/services/podcasting/

CNN offers a lot of audio and video podcasts dealing with many different subjects, such as news, business, health, TV shows. I can find the files which I'm most interested in very easily and quickly because I can choose podcasts by title or topic. I decided to subscribe to 'The CNN daily' podcasts and the 'CNN news update' podcasts, but there are many other podcasts available on this website.

There is another website hosting interesting podcasts. I saved in my del.icio.us and subscribed to it a week ago, and I’d like to write about it briefly.

5. http://www.thebobandrobshow.com/

This website contains audio podcasts about English lessons, which deal with many different subjects. It’s a variety show performed by two EFL teachers living in Japan.

I hope you’ll find these websites useful!

See you!

Giovanna

(photo source)