Language Podcasts

The first podcast I reviewed was: http://www.codyscuentos.com/2009/11/los-musicos-de-bremen/ from the Cody's Cuentos website. The idea for the website itself (stories in Spanish) was great to me since I love books and storytelling and the selection I listened to was a Grimm's faerie tale (also a favorite) so my own "listener motivation" was high. I liked the fact that the interface was very user friendly: choose a story, click the play button and you're rolling. The transcript for each story was provided on the same page and I had some mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it was nice to have on the first listen and it also gives the listener a chance to see/hear alternate ways of saying something on the number of occasions where the narrator diverged slightly from the script. On the other hand, it also felt like a crutch that the listener could (and probably would) be tempted to use since it was staring you right in the face. I think I might have liked it better if there were another link to click on to get the transcript and/or a way to hide the text so that it could be a pure listening experience. Overall, I thought it was good though and I may even use it in the future for my own personal use.

The second podcast I reviewed was: http://www.eslpod.com/website/show_podcast.php?issue_id=8189978#. I think that the podcasts in general on the eslpod site are too long and boring thus lowering learner motivation. They tend to have a script that is "acted" out in a slow pace and then the narrator reviews the vocabulary within it. As a teacher, I feel like there are other ways to get the students to review or understand the vocabulary. There is no real deep processing needed and therefore retention is unlikely. After this vocabulary review, the "actors" go through the dialog again at a faster rate. I might be tempted to use the slower version and then the faster version and play them back to back (maybe the fast version first to see what they understand and then the slower version to let them hear words they missed at a slower rate) but I would definitely skip the middle section completely. One thing I do like about the site though is that they cover a broad range of topics and some vocabulary associated with it so if you supplemented this podcast with some other material it might not be a bad way to introduce a topic.