Podcast on iOS devices for adult learners - listening on the go

Introduction

    The circumstance of teaching and practicing listening has been rather bad in the past, featuring the limited access to authentic listening materials, teachers controlling where, when, how much and for what purpose listening is carried out. Podcasts together with mobile devices (e.g. iPhones) can greatly  change all the story (especially for university students and adult learners). Most people around me in China who show the intention to improve their English for whatever purposes have their own rather advanced smartphones, but few of them are aware of the function of podcast (e.g. iTunes U, podcast). In this post, I am going to introduce the function of podcast (it was an app) on Apple mobile devices (iPod, iPhone and iPad). 

Rationale

Note that in many cases podcasts accessed through mobile devices are basically non-retrospectical listening process, in which there is no context or requirement for interactions to take place , quite similar to the way of listening practice carried out in the classroom that has for a long time been criticised. However, the affordances provided by podcast and popularisation of mobile devices make it greatly different from listening practice in the classroom. (development of Web 2.0 tools can also be used to create contexts for interactions)

The obvious affordance is accessibility. We have access to enormous amount of listening materials, either authentic ones from native speakers like BBC world service or teaching materials for language learners, well categorised by topics and some high quality teaching materials clearly graded (etc. beginner, intermediate, advanced). Furthermore, we have access to them whenever and wherever we are as long as we subscribe to the material and have mobile devices with us, either listening online or listening offline pre-downloaded materials. It is a kind of realisation of informal and life-long learning, embedding learning into everyday life, making learning intentional and accidental, as noted by Naismith, et al (2005:3, cited in Rosell-Aguilar, Fernando, 2007).


Easy access to authentic material have 'the potential to draw the learner into the communicative world of the target language community' (Little 1997, in Rosell-Aguilar, Fernando, 2007), thus helping learners find practical value of the target language and the link between 'self' and the community.

Moreover, making learners choose listening materials of their own interests being able to  control the pace for listening (skip, pause, forward) can greatly increase their sense of autonomy, thus making them highly motivated.

How to use

  

Podcast in iTuens on Apple mobile devices have the similar functions as many other independent podcast apps. Simply click 'App store' on your device and search 'podcast', it will lead you to the podcast interface, then you can choose from top charts in which there are categories (see picture below). If you know the name of the podcast you are looking for, use the search function. After finding the podcast, click subscribe (all content are free) and next time when you want to listen, they will appear on the bottom left 'My Podcasts' and 'My stations'. Note that you can also do this by using iTunes installed on any of your computers. Using same Apple ID will keep all subscribed materials synced at all devices. 

Two of my recommendations are: The English We Speak and 6 Minute English, both produced by BBC World Service. And transcripts can be found on BBC website.

Problems

    In the previous blog post, I mentioned the affordance of accessibility also brings the challenge of selecting appropriate materials from overloaded and various quality information. This is also a big problem in selecting podcasts not only because the enormous amount of audio and video materials with various qualities online, but because we have to listen from beginning to the end to check the content quality instead of quickly skimming. So teacher's recommendations are valuable for learners to make better choices.

I believe podcasting together with Web 2.0 tools like blogs and wiki, has great potential in language education in the near future. Right now, it can serve as a great tool to provide comprehensible input or extensive listening for autonomous learners.

How podcasts  can be used by teachers in class will be talked about in later posts.

References

Rosell-Aguilar, Fernando (2007). Top of the Pods - In search of a podcasting “podagogy” for 
    language learning. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 20(5), pp. 471–492.