XplanaZine

Today’s podcast is a sample review lesson created for first-year Spanish students (but you don’t need to know Spanish to listen!). My intent with this podcast is to provide a good example of podcasting as it can be used in education, along with some pedagogical guidelines for creating such content.

Pedagogy — Podcasts for Education

My own work with with podcasting and learning in language classes has revealed several important requirements for successful podcasts in education.

• Appropriate Length — Educational podcasts should be between 2-4 minutes in length for maximum effectiveness. Obviously, his means chunking content appropriately. Podcasts that are too short often leave students feeling that it wasn’t worth their time, while those that are too long are abandoned midstream;
• Informal Tone and High Energy — Students respond best to information or media that “connects” with them. They prefer a friendly, informal tone and like high energy that keeps them engaged. There is a big difference between the informal tone I use in tutoring or classroom interaction with students and the more formal presentation style of a lecture. Podcasts have to make students feel that they are part of something rather than merely the recipients of a boring presentation;
• Importance of Context and Review — Educational podcasts should always begin with a clear context for the information being presented, and should end with a review of the most important things to remember;
• Options for Different Learning Style Preferences — Effective podcasts should offer optional transcripts and/or images to address different learning styles as well as accessibility issues. Podcasts reviewed on the Web can make use of all these media types;
• Flexible Delivery Options — It is important to provide multiple delivery options for students and preferences for subscribing and downloading will vary.

Podcast Sample

The sample provided here is a presentation of Question Words in Spanish and is intended for beginning students. Traditionally, language classes in the United States emphasize a predominant use of the target language in the classroom and this is a methodology to which I subscribe when I’m in the classroom. You will note that the podcast, however, is mostly in English. This is because the purpose of the podcast is for review and to help students who are struggling with concepts that may seem difficult because of the language barrier.

Another thing to note about the podcast is the clear pedagogical structure: context–>information–>review. All of my podcasts are like this and I have found that the format is extremely effective.

Finally, the tone of this podcast is designed to be a combination of formal and informal. The high energy of the podcast is designed to help keep the listener’s attention and while the examples are deliberately informal, the accuracy of the content conveys a more formal authority, similar to that of a tutoring session.

Click here to download a transcript of this podcast.

Broadcast Information

podcast feed
i-podder download