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Using podcasting to extend speaking skills and promote creativity
Context
In the MFL department at Edgehill College in Bideford, Devon, Spanish teacher Chris Fuller has been podcasting with his GCSE students to prepare them for their speaking exam and improve their understanding of grammar.
The small private school offers Spanish and French to pupils from 3 years old up to A' Level candidates. Pupils are used to using technology in and out of the classroom, the outcomes of which feature on the Edgehill Spanish blog
Project
Using podcasting to extend speaking skills and promote creativity in students preparing for GCSE Spanish.
Key objectives
- To showcase and extend students' spoken work
- To make a record of speaking activities performed in class
- To enable auditory learners to revise using their preferred learning style
- To help learners deepen their understanding by letting them write a script in their own words
- To stimulate creativity
- To improve pronunciation through rehearsal and the recording/editing process
- To develop ways of working collaboratively through peer assessment
- To enable students to publish for a real purpose to a real audience
- To develop distance learning opportunities so that students can become more independent
- To engage students with technology which is already familiar to them and make language learning more relevant to them
- To help pupils revise basic grammar.
How activities are organised
Having attended the annual Isle of Wight Conference on podcasting in 2006, Chris wanted to experiment with podcasting as a way of helping his Year 10 and Year 11 pupils revise for their GCSE exams.
- Firstly, using a microphone and free sound-editing software Audacity, he created a Spanish Grammar Series which he hosted on the podcasting portal, Jellycast
- He then put his work on iTunes for his students to download and listen to on their mp3 players and mobile phones
- Thrilled by the number of downloads he received within the first six months, Chris felt encouraged to explore further the potential of podcasting
- He asked his students to podcast themselves by getting them to write their own scripts, peer assess each other's work and then rehearse before making the final recording
- This became the EdgehillCast
- Recently, Chris has created some role-play raps to help his pupils revise key expressions in the speaking exam which have received positive feedback from his pupils as a useful aide-mémoire.
Evidence of success
- 30,000 downloads within six months of the Spanish Grammar Series going online
- Positive feedback from students
- The profile of the languages department across the school has been raised
- Students take work to be podcast seriously as they know it is going to be published.
- Visitors from around the world leave comments on the Edgehill Spanish blog.
Future developments
- To create a bank of podcasts as models for younger students
- To assess more precisely the learning outcomes of podcasting by looking at empirical evidence over a number of years
- To develop eTwinning links
- To encourage more students to work collaboratively and independently online
- To encourage more students to take advantage of the personalised and distance learning opportunities of podcasting
- To give students access to more examples of authentic podcasts to improve their cultural awareness
- To encourage local colleagues to start podcasting and sharing recordings with each other
- To explore further how podcasting can enhance language learning such as by pupils recording audio homeworks with mobile phones and sending it to the teacher via Bluetooth.
Author: Joe Dale, Nodehill Middle School, Isle of Wight
