What student wouldn't love the assignment to put in their earphones and push play on their mp3 player? That is exactly the kind of assignments my Spanish students will be doing. I will use podcasts to give my students additional opportunities to hear and speak Spanish.
Not only will podcasts give my students access to native speakers to listen to on a variety of topics and levels, podcasts will be great tools that I as an instructor can use to evaluate my students language learning.
I will be able to assign my students to make a podcast of themselves speaking on an assigned topic or participating in a dialogue with another classmate and I will be able to, from the comforts of my own home and at my convenience, listen to, evaluate, give feedback, and determine what I can do as a teacher to help my students progress.
I will also be able to assign recordings in Spanish for my students to listen to and then transcribe what they heard or respond to questions for a listening comprehension exercise.
I can also have my students make a podcast where they teach a Spanish grammar concept. This will give them the opportunity to teach and therefore solidify their learning.
