What is this?
- 'ESLPOD' is the home of many podcasts for ESL or EFL learners and teachers.
- It provides theme-based conversations.
- Subscription is free. You can download the listening files through 'iTunes'. It is delivered to you automatically each day.
Why is the content good for language learning?
- For intermediate and advanced levels of young learners, teachers might choose dialogues from 'English cafe, Daily life, Travel, or Dining' catagories.
- Students can get a chance to listen to English conversation in order to improve their functional skills.
- Students can learn spoken English features such as pronunciation, intonation, speed, pause and tone.
How might you use it to foster language learning?
- Listen to a dialogue together and ask students what it is about.
- Explain any difficult words or parts that they cannot catch.
- Hand out the script to students and let them practice the conversation in groups or in pairs.
- Practice the key structures of questions and answers by replacing some words.
- Let students in a pair make their own dialogue by using the same topic and the similar structures from the conversation.
- Present their own dialgue as a whole class and choose the best ones.
- For the higher level, while listening to a historical story, pause sometimes and share the main ideas with students.
What limitations should the teacher consider when using it?
- Some episodes with adult topics are not relevant for young learners.
- Might be better to provide children's daily conversations.
- The same comment is repeated in every episode.
- Rather long for children
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