ELTpodcast.com
Developing a Podcast for EFL Students and Teachers
Robert Chartrand - Kurume University
Bill Pellowe - Kinki University
Agenda
• Podcasts for students - What and why?
• Podcasts for teachers - What and why?
• How we produced our podcasts
• Website discussion
• What about the future?
Uschi Felix, Monash Univ.
• E-learning pedagogy in the 3rd
Millenium: Need for combining social
and cognitive constructivist approaches
• Roles of both teachers and students
have changed... processes include
negotiated curricula and real-life tutors
• Need for ICALL (Intelligent CALL)
Podcasts for students
• Why?
• Beginner - slow/natural/slow
• Intermediate - natural speed
• Student oriented materials
• Website & iPod support for reading
• Good for study outside of classroom
ELTPodcast.com Overview
iPod Support
Looks
great on
iPods!
“Teachers’ Lounge”
Participants
• Bill Pellowe
• Robert Chartrand
• Kevin Ryan
• Dominic Marini
Target Audience
• EFL Teachers
• Description: “Language teachers talking
about education and language teaching.”
Topic Sampling
• First Lesson of the School Year
• Information Gap Activities
• Using Textbook Dialogs
• Attendance (policies in practice)
• Accents & Language Teaching
Purpose
• ELT Podcast - The Teachers’ Lounge is a
way for teachers to share their experience
with other teachers, especially those who
have less experience.
Episode Page
Bread-crumb
navigation
Episode Title,
Participants
Click to listen
online (pop-up
window)
Subscribe via
iTunes
Written
summary of the
discussion
Written
summary of the
discussion
How podcasts were produced
• Recordings done by Sound Studio 3 by Felt
Tip Software (Mac OS) when in same location
• GarageBand was not as good because of
poor quality when recording voice
• Skype is used when recording from different
locations
• Audio Hijack Pro used to record from Skype
(good also to record streaming audio)
RSS, Database
The technology behind the scenes.
Simpler Solutions
• Podomatic.com
• Blogs
Our Own Website
• Complete control over design, format,
ownership.
• Host several podcasts under one “roof.”
RSS
• “Really Simple Syndication” format
• XML file
• The audience member’s “reader”
software checks your XML file to see if
you’ve published a new episode. If so, it
downloads the new episode file.
<rss xmlns:itunes="http://www.itunes.com/dtds/podcast-1.0.dtd" version="2.0">
<channel>
<ttl>1440</ttl>
<title>ELT Podcast - The Teachers&apos; Lounge</title>
<link>http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge</link>
<language>en-us</language>
<itunes:subtitle>Language teachers talking about education and language teaching.
</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:author>Hosted by Bill Pellowe</itunes:author>
<itunes:summary>Language teachers talking about education and teaching EFL, English as
a Foreign Language.</itunes:summary>
<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
<description>Language teachers talking about education and teaching EFL, English as a
Foreign Language.</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 21 Mar 2007 08:07:05 GMT</pubDate>
<copyright>&#x2117; &amp; &#xA9; ELTpodcast.com</copyright>
<itunes:owner>
<itunes:name>Bill Pellowe</itunes:name>
<itunes:email>podcast@eltpodcast.com</itunes:email>
</itunes:owner>
<itunes:image href="http://www.eltpodcast.com/images/cooleltpodcast300.jpg" />
<image>
<url>http://www.eltpodcast.com/images/eltpodcastlogo_sm.gif</url>
<title>ELT Podcast</title>
<link>http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge</link>
<width>144</width>
<height>40</height>
</image>
<itunes:category text="Education">
<itunes:category text="Language Courses" />
</itunes:category>
Podcast
Information
Episode Information
<item>
<title>First Lesson of the School Year for EFL Classrooms</title>
<itunes:author>Bill Pellowe, Kevin Ryan, Robert Chartrand</itunes:author>
<itunes:subtitle>Language teachers talk about what they do when faced with
a new group of students in the classroom on the first day of classes in the
new school year.</itunes:subtitle>
<itunes:summary>www.eltpodcast.com
In this episode, language teachers talk about what they do when faced with a
new group of students in the classroom on the first day of classes in the new
school year. Visit the Teachers&apos; Lounge archive on our website for a full
summary of this and other episodes.
ELT Podcast Teachers&apos; Lounge is for language
teachers.</itunes:summary>
<enclosure url="http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl09.mp3"
length="7956873" type="audio/mpeg" />
<guid>http://www.eltpodcast.com/audio/tl/elttl09.mp3</guid>
<pubDate>Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:51:53 GMT</pubDate>
<itunes:duration>16:33</itunes:duration>
<itunes:keywords>efl, esl, english as a foreign language, first lessons, lesson
ideas, lesson plans</itunes:keywords>
<itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit>
<link>http://www.eltpodcast.com/archive/lounge/firstlessons.html</link>
<description>
<![CDATA[
This episode of ELT Podcast - The Teachers' Lounge… (I’ve truncated this to
save space)
]]>
</description>
</item>
mp3
location
publication
date
ELT Podcast Back-End
Database
(MySQL)
RSS
Website
iTunes,
etc.
Add /
Update
Podcast &
Episode
Data
podcast_items.pc_id
ties the episode
to its podcast,
podcast_meta.id
Click here to update
the RSS feed.
Written in PHP
Validate RSS
http://www.feedvalidator.org
As a link:
http://www.feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=http://www.eltpodc
ast.com/elttl.xml
Instead of our URL, use yours.
Ping iTunes
This speeds up the process of having your
newest episode listed on iTunes.
As a link:
https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/
MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast?id=000000000
Your podcast’s iTunes ID goes at the end.
Future Plans
The Future
• Podcasts can be a useful tool for PD
• Will set up a series of video podcasts that
show specific teaching points of English
• Provide feedback opportunity for language
instructors to evaluate podcasts so materials fit
needs of community
• Affinity of learners is not well understood, offer
an opportunity to evaluate and provide
feedback as a learning tool
ELT Video (1 of 2)
• Practical teacher training videos
• activity ideas
• class management tips
• advice
ELT Video (2 of 2)
• Practical student training videos for
teachers to use in-class
• how to do pair work
• doing information gap activities
• giving a speech
The End