Just posted the latest espisode of the Bardwell Road Centre Podcast, episode 3.
TBRCP0003 - GO5 class tell how they spent the weekend
http://bardwellroad.podOmatic.com/entry/2006-01-20T06_19_46-08_00
This time, with a guest producer, José, one of the students in my pre-intermediate GO5 class. José is an adult, Spanish, works as a crewman on an oil tanker.
RECORDING
José had planned an episode where he would interview his classmates about what they did during last weekend. He had written out an introduction to the topic, and a set of linking introductions to each interviewee. José did really well, responding to people, asking more questions to try to draw quiet people out, etc. We recorded the interviews during classtime. Took about 45 minutes.
EDITING
After the class, José and I went and sequenced and edited the interviews. I acted as technical assistant and advisor, he made decisions about cuts. He chose a piece of music (free in the new version of Garageband in iLife ‘06) to accompany the podcast. He also recorded the podcast “intro” and “outro”.
PUBLISHING
I tidied up the podcast, altering sound levels, etc, then posted the episode on podomatic, adding brief “show notes, and a photo of José.
COMMENTS
The biggest surprise for both José and me was that, at first, some students didn’t want to participate. In the end, José managed to persuade all but one student to participate, but in a way, I could see their point. Why should they want to have their voices published on the Internet, speaking in a language not native to them? I’d been thinking about the audience - why would anyone want to listen, but I’d pretty much overlooked the producers - why would anyone want to be recorded? Hmn…
Hopefully, in the future, other students and other classes can be involved, and take the heat off the GO5 students themselves…
Used the new version of Garageband (now iLife ‘06). First impression of the new podcast studio features: great! but I haven’t scratched the surface yet. Take Apple’s Garageband 3 Quick Tour.
4 responses so far ↓
1
Dennis
// Jan 20, 2006 at 4:01 pm
I have never made a podcast and only heard a few, but I can see the danger that podcasts may arise out of the instructor’s enthusiasm rather than the learners’.
2
Graham Stanley
// Jan 21, 2006 at 6:50 pm
I agree with you Dennis, and I don’t think it’s surprising that some students just don’t fancy participating in a recording.
It has to be approached very carefully, and the students need to be sold the idea and feel comfortable with it. How best to approach this? A good way would be to introduce them to the benefits of doing this. What’s in it for them? And, especially if they know that there are other people listening (and leaving comments for them), it will be easier to persuade them of the value of doing it - principally if they beleive it is going to be used as a form of communication with someone. This will help if you receive comments, or if we can get another class / school doing a similar thing and they can share experiences maybe.
I’ll help you out here and leave some comments today, and I’d encourage other participants (even better later on if other students are being involved) to do the same. I’m sure you’ll see a change in attitude.
Giving them adequate preparation is another important aspect. I think it’s the same when someone suddenly takes out a camera and tells someone to smile, that they’re going to take a photo. Many people feel uncomfortable about this because they think that the photograph will become a type of ‘permanent record’. It’s much better to tell them beforehand (a class or so before?) and give them time to prepare something, at least in the beginning - later on, they’ll probably get confident enough to do it without much prompting.
3
Sue
// Jan 22, 2006 at 3:47 am
Hi Geoff,
Let me first say I’m not an ESL/EFL Instructor so my comments might be a little off….
It was refreshing to see your honest comment about the students not wanting to participate in a podcast that is going to be listened to across the globe. It’s important that we maintain an honesty about these new technologies as we work our way through them.
I’m about to start doing more podcasts with adults and I figure I will get the same response that José got. I would like to hear more about how he convinced people to be recorded… and by the way, please tell your students to keep up the good work!
I was wondering if more of your students would participate in a podcast if it provided a service - such as book or movie reviews. This would also give others an opportunity to engage with your students. Perhaps along the lines of a Literature Circle of a popular book or discussing what’s in a current magazine. My thinking here is that “what you did on the weekend” is a good conversation amongst friends but a little harder for strangers to get interested in.
Another idea I had while I pondered your problem of both unwilling participants and lack of interactions from outsiders was that it would be interesting to hear your students’ impressions about their culture - this could be used by other students doing projects or others, like me, who would love to learn about other cultures from ‘insiders’. Today I listened to a podcast called the “Polar Bear Podcast” by a Swedish guy - interesting stuff - you may want to check it out - http://www.polarbearpodcast.com/ .
Or what about having your students do a podcast where they teach someone who is english, easy phrases in their own language. Somewhat like the Chinese Podcast here: http://www.chinesepod.com/
Lastly, perhaps we just need to calm down about the whole podcast thing and realize that the PROCESS of DOING the podcast is just as important for learning - I think the posting of it, the thing that makes the audio a Podcast, is just a small part. I think just AUDIO in the classroom can be very effective - does the whole world need to be a part of it (the ‘podcast’ part)? I think not! As your students plan out what they’re going to do, prepare a script, record and then produce it… All in English..I think that makes for good learning…but hey, I’m not an ESL/EFL teacher!
What if you just did classroom radio shows that weren’t being published (or podcasted)…at first…You continue to enlighten your students about podcasts from around the world and I think eventually your students would want their’s published!
4
geofftaylor
// Jan 22, 2006 at 10:52 pm
Thanks to Dennis, Graham and Sue for their comments.
Dennis is right that it’s the teacher’s (my) enthusiasm that has driven the project so far, rather than the students’.
I’ve come to the idea of producing a podcast through my interest in listening to other people’s podcasts. But listening to podcasts is not yet part of my students’ personal lives. Graham said: “It has to be approached very carefully, and the students need to be sold the idea and feel comfortable with it… Giving them adequate preparation is another important aspect.” I guess I’ve jumped the gun by trying to get them to produce podcasts without personal experience of or investment in the medium.
Graham had another good point about the importance of helping the students to see what was in it for them, e.g “if they know that there are other people listening (and leaving comments for them)”. I’m thinking now that maybe I’ll try to emphasise that we are trying to do shows for other students in the school, and/or involve other students in the school in shows - i.e. to limit the audience, de-emphasising the global accessibility of the publishing mechanism, stressing local delivery of message.
Sue had a good point that the content chosen for the last show - what a group of students did at the weekend - was unlikely to be of much interest to a wider audience. She wondered if more of the students would participate in a podcast “if it provided a service - such as book or movie reviews. This would also give others an opportunity to engage with your students.”
This is an excellent idea. Actually, that was one of the suggested types of show I suggested to the class. Like mainstream media content, I said, we could either provide a service of information or entertainment.
I think Jose thought that he was going to get a set of reports on the school’s previous weekend excursion, a shared experience in the school, which would have been fine. I thought too that it would give students opportunity for free practice with the past simple, an item in their previous study. But most of this class had not attended the excursion, and were, I think, embarrassed at the lack of anything interesting to relate.
Sue made other good suggestions as to other types of content. But maybe her best suggestion was that if my students learned more about podcasts from around the world, eventually they would want their’s published! I.e. putting the horse before the cart, rather than, as I’ve done, putting the cart before the horse.