HOW TO CREATE PODCASTS FOR TEACHING LISTENING COMPREHENSION

As a teacher who works in a low-tech environment where smartphones, tab, PC and even the internet are not easily accessible, improvisation becomes the only way to survive in the classroom.

Due to these reasons, teachers tend to overwhelm students with just reading comprehension passages and neglect teaching listening comprehension skills. We always teach reading comprehension but have you ever wondered how to teach LISTENING COMPREHENSION?

This is sometimes a big deal because you may wonder that in a school where there's no language laboratory (no headset, computer, software), it may not be possible to teach listening comprehension. That's not true!

Not only that, an African or non-native English teacher would look down on his/her accent and see it as a barrier to teaching English listening because he or she is not white (native of English).

This isn't necessary here because what we want to teach is far from an accent but rather a comprehension ability.

The major objective of LISTENING COMPREHENSION PASSAGE is to develop learners' listening proficiency.

We want to help our student to understand what is being said in any context.

HOW TO MAKE YOUR CLASS A LANGUAGE LAB FOR TEACHING LISTENING?

This is a simple way of solving teaching listening challenges. Forget about your accent (due to mother tongue interference) and also you don't need to raise your voice because the class is large.

👉FIRST, AT LEAST, YOU NEED A BLUETOOTH MP3 PLAYER AND A SMARTPHONE.

👉PICK THE PASSAGE OF YOUR CHOICE FROM ANY FIELD YOU DESIRE.

👉WHILE READING ALOUD, RECORD YOUR VOICE CLEARLY IN A QUIET PLACE (using any of the podcast creator tools below)

👉WRITE OUT THE QUESTIONS ON THE BOARD BEFORE PLAYING YOUR RECORD.

👉ALLOW LEARNERS TO BE FAMILIAR WITH THE TOPIC AND QUESTIONS.

👉CONTROL THE CLASS TO KEEP QUIET WHILE YOU PLAY THE PODCAST.

👉PLAY THE PODCAST VIA THE BLUETOOTH MP3 (INCREASE THE VOLUME)

👉ASK/ASSESS THE LEARNER'S ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS.

APPS AVAILABLE FOR CREATING MY CLASSROOM PODCASTS

I frequently use these apps during my listening lessons. You can download them on your smartphone for free.

👉Anchor (for recording podcast)

👉Podbean (for recording podcast)

👉British Council Podcast (for downloadable pre-recorded audios)

👉BBC Sounds (for live radio and podcasts)

THANKS FOR READING!

H.O Lawal