ESL students and podcasting

The benefits of using pod-casting for ESL students had never occurred to me until reading a fellow blogger, Kimberly, posting. It drew my attention to this article which also states several benefits of pod-casting.

This article gives fantastic ways to make pod-casting accessible to all, through making it inexpensive. Sure it does not have all the ‘bell’s and whistles’ which money can buy, but to get your point across using pod-casting what equipment to you really need? A microphone and an Internet connection.

Pod-casting for ESL students is beneficial as language teacher can put their lessons onto MP3’s for students to download and they are able to take it home and learn at their own pace. The example given in the article is that students can be given a story in their known language, but then must answer questions relating to this story which are in the language they are learning. The questions could be written or given over the pod cast. Again students can learn at their own pace.

Pod-casting for ESL students would be highly beneficial!