While I was having a beer with a few of you the other day I started whining as I didn’t have the time to cope with so much work. And I remembered that I still kept somewhere a list with the suggestions of podcasts episodes you’d been listening to when I first introduced you to podcasting back in November or so. I got some feedback about what it was you listened to, whether it had been any interesting in your opinion, difficult, easy to understand, if the podcast provided students or listeners with the transcript, how often it was updated and things like that.
I also surveyed what were the chances of having a podcast but unfortunately it didn’t come off. Not because you just couldn’t be bothered but because I wasn’t able to think how I was going to organize the recording sessions while in the classroom, the post-editing and that. Anyway, I got some very interesting ideas about what the contents might be, some people (especially from 1st Avanzado) sounded excited about the whole idea and I’ve made up my mind that we will have our own podcast next year, whoever my students are, whether I’m a teacher in 4th year or 5th or any other. So if I happen to be your teacher next year you’re in for trouble!
But I digress…back to the podcasts. As I was saying I got a list of podcasts, crossed out the ones you didn’t like whatever the reason and then chose a few of the best ones in your opinion, which are as follows.
–Podcasts in English
–Listen to English
–6 minute English
–English as a Second Language
–Breaking News English
–Talk about English
–Better at English
–Tu-Ingles
–City by city
–Business English Pod
–Travel with Rick Steves
–National Geographic
These are all web-based so if you click on the title you will be referred to the site and then you’ll get all the information about the podcasts and the archives. Remember you can either download or listen to the episodes in streaming and also subscribe to them. For subscriptions you have three options- RSS, or else as they say ‘easy does it’: get the episodes via iTunes (strongly recommended application for downloading and managing podcasts). If you have problems you can also try Juice ipodder. If you still have problems, let’s face it, you’re a bit clumsy and state-of-the-art technology is not for you. Buy a transistor radio instead.
And last but not least, some of my suggestions, things I, to be honest, download-every-day-but- never-find-the-time-to-listen-to, well, sometimes when I go running listening to the Geoff’s show while I puff my way up the slopes makes being scant of breath a bit more bearable. Most of them are, I’m warning you, not specifically for teaching English as a second language or educational purposes, which might make it a bit too difficult as they’re aimed for natives. Actually it’s mostly radio programmes which have a podcast as a bonus. You might have a go, though. Here’s then a few of the things I sometimes, hardly ever, very few and far between, listen to but I still like:
–Adam and Joe
–Ricky Gervais
-Geoff Lloyd’s Hometime Show
–The Larry King Show
–This American Life
–TED talks
I think that’s enough, isn’t it? Next year we’ll take over and our classroom-made podcast will be top-notch!
See you in class…