Podcasts

Podcasting is one of the key features of web 2.0 that can be used by language teachers and students.

I found this podcast on betteratenglish.com. The podcast tells ESL /EFL students how to find English idioms that cannot be located in the dictionary. The webpage where it is featured also gives a transcription of the podcast for students to use as a read-along, or a pre-or post- listening aid.

The topic addressed in this podcast would be especially useful to students who are at the intermediate level or higher who are beginning to wonder about idioms, which are notoriously difficult for language learners.

In my future classroom, I would love to have my students listen to this, as it gives them the tools that they need to discover the meaning of idioms for themselves. This is a theoretically sound idea, as learners retain information better when they have put in the mental effort to obtain it. Rather than simply list off the meanings of various idioms, the podcast gives the students the ability and motivation that they need to find out the meaning of any idiom on their own. Wonderful!