What is... podcasting?

You've got (or your learners have got) an MP3 player...? Then you've got just about all it takes to be able to podcast...

Podcasting -- a portmanteau of the terms "iPod" and "broadcasting" -- involves publishing MP3 (audio) files on the Internet, downloading and listening to them.

It has become hugely popular [statistics from the BBC] and is one of the technologies we might consider using with language learners (though, says The Guardian, which also claims to have invented the word, it is "...still a format awaiting a purpose".

Where to begin
This short concise article on teachingenglish.org.uk is probably the easiest place to begin to form an overview of what podcasting involves and what you need to be able to do it.

What use could you make of podcasts with your learners? Techlearning.com explains How Educators Can Use This New Technology.

Where to find good podcasts
On Yahoo, as on other search engines, you can search for podcasts on a huge variety of topics.

You also have specialised podcasting portals like Podcastalley.com, where you can also search under different genres (including, eg., education) as well as seeing what's most popular.

The mainstream online media -- the New York Times, for example -- has also quickly picked up on the popularity of podcasts.

For more "general interest" podcasts, LifeHacker.com has an excellent article on where to find them.

Podcasts for English teachers and learners
For podcasts specifically for ELT, there are several places you could try:

• The popular Flo-Joe site ("the place on the Web for Cambridge exam preparation") publishes a weekly podcast
• EnglishCaster.com ("the best place to find English lesson podcasts) is a good place to search
• At a4esl.org, you will find "the 20 newest podcasts by ESL podcasters"
• And as Eslpod.com you will find more...
  

More resources
On the "Podcasting ELT" Yahoo Group (join it, if you are interested in podcasting), you will find lots more links relating to podcasting.

Why bother with technology?

All that technology... But is it really worth it?

"Why bother?" It was one of the "muddiest points" from one of the sessions on August 10th (full list of MPs from the session). I assume that what was meant was "Why bother with using technology in the classroom?"

In the first place, it should be said that technology certainly can at times be a hassle -- setting things up, and getting them to work properly and booking equipment out and so on. You certainly do want to have your "Plan B" up your sleeve!

Secondly, I definitely wouldn't bother unless I was sure that my return on investment was going to be high. If, for the time the learners and the teacher spend on the technology, they don't learn more language than they would have otherwise, or develop their language skills more, then I wouldn't use technology.

So why and when would I bother?
First of all, I'd say that it's a question of thinking not "What am I going to do with the technology?" but "What are my learners going to do with the language?". If you've thought about it in those terms, you are off to a good start...

Among the other reasons why I would go to a certain amount of hassle:

• Technology is exciting, especially to anyone below the age of about 25
• Conversely, (course) books -- and teachers! -- are boring to many of the same age group
• Technology allows you to create things, often from nothing -- a podcast or a creative writing project or a PowerPoint presentation
• Things like blogs and podcasts and chat and email allow you to communicate with other people, possibly natives
  

All of the above lead to greater motivation. "We created this!" "We did that!" "We succeeded!" "We talked to real English speakers and they understood us!" Those are powerful motivators -- none of which you normally get with a grammar exercise in a coursebook.

Does technology = more language learning? It's not such a straightforward equation. But if your learners are more motivated, they will learn more.

Muddiest points, 10 August

A number of the "muddiest points" from the session(s) on August 10 I've answered previously, so I will direct you to answers that you'll find here on this blog:

• How do you set up a "news aggregator" -- and what is RSS?
• Using "paste special" to copy text off of the Internet into a Word document
• How to change the default start page of your browser
• Which is better, text or images?
• What's podcasting?
• Coping with geekspeak
  

In a separate post, I've answered the question "Why bother with technology?"

And finally, someone wanted to know how to find things on Google. I would argue that they didn't mean Google, they meant finding things on the Internet...

About this blog

This blog began to accompany a session on technology on the CELTA course at International House Barcelona [website].

It is intended to be used by trainees both on and after the course -- and will hopefully also be of interest to anyone thinking of using technology in a language classroom.

Posts are by me, Tom Walton, webmaster at International House Barcelona, who also gives the face-to-face session.

The views expressed are my own, and are not necessarily shared by anyone else at the institution that employs me.

Do feel free add comments on anything you read here. Alternatively, you can also contact me by mail.

Enjoy your teaching...!

Lateral thinking puzzles

To practise question forms, lateral thinking puzzles can be fun. Example:

A man is replacing a wheel on his car, when he accidentally drops the four nuts used to hold the wheel on the car, and they fall into a deep drain, irretrievably lost. A passing girl offers him a solution which enables him to drive home. What is it? [Answer in "comments", below]

More: 101 lateral thinking puzzles

They make good classroom activities apart from anything else because your learners really want to form those questions!

I suggest you refuse to answer any questions that are incorrectly formed... ("Good question, but if you can correct it, I'll answer it...")

Note that lateral thinking puzzles tend to be a bit morbid (and death is a subject I think best avoided in a classroom). The ones here are bit less morbid.

Preposition Basketball

This one came from a back issue of the excellent ET Professional magazine (ET meaning English Teaching, that is):

This activity practises prepositions of place with elementary students. Put a bin on a chair and draw an imaginary line about ten feet away. The students stand behind the line and aim a stone into the bin. Points are then won for various positions: in the bin (20 points), on the chair (15 points), under the chair (10 points), next to, behind, etc.

I'd suggest that the point of the activity is to actually say the prepositions correctly -- you get the points for that, not for your ability to lob a stone into a bin!

You could have several chairs and a couple of bags to add further interest to it, and might want to replace the stone with a screwed-up piece of paper rather than a stone -- especially if the bin is a metal one and there's a class next door!

Sounds like a great activity for a summer camp, to me...

ETP [website] comes out six times a year and currently costs 25 GBP a year. There's always something of interest in it... Highly recommended.

Designing prepositions

In the excellent Cambridge International Dictionary of English (one designed for learners), there is a neat little diagram explaining the prepositions, with each preposition plus a single arrow illustrating meaning...



With a group of design students (though you could surely do the same thing with any group), a colleague got them to "design" a similar diagram. As you can see above, one student turned the arrow into a matchstick man and added a paper bag or bags to illustrate the meaning (eg. the matchstick man climbing "into" or "out of" the bag).