I listen to A LOT of podcasts, so the idea of using them to teach was very intriguing to me, but the podcasts I listen to are mostly based around comedy and wouldn't really be appropriate for a classroom. So, I looked at the podcasts I listen to that aren't comedy based and tried to think if any of them could be used to teach, and the one I think could be most useful is called Stuff You Missed in History Class, and I think it could be used in many ways to help ESL students.
The podcast is about lesser known stories from world history, and while I think in general it would be good practice for upper intermediate or higher students that were interested in it to listen to it for practice. If I were going to design a lesson, I think a good idea would be to use an episode like a recent one called, "The First Transatlantic Telegraph Cable." For the lesson I would take the podcast and divide the audio into four pieces, and have the students listen to only their section in groups. Then after the group had listen and summarized their segment of the audio they would have to talk with the other groups to put the segments in the right order to tell the story.
This exercise would be good for helping student to improve their listening skills when listening to and summarizing the audio, as well as their speaking and cooperation skills when ordering the audio pieces. Of course this could be done with other episodes of this podcast or even with other podcasts that have some sort of a narrative form to them. I do realize that you would have to do this with upper level students, but I think the exposure to authentic language would be good for them.
I chose to create a video using Animoto. I was a little intimidated at first since I don't have too much experience with video creation, but once I got started it was pretty simple and intuitive.
The lesson I made on demonyms could be part of a flipped classroom experience where students studied the demonyms at home and then discussed them in class.
I don't think it would be very difficult at all to have students use this site to create videos of their own. One idea I had was the have students create their own short flipped lessons, much like the video I created, then have a classmate or classmates do the lesson. This would be a good way for students to demonstrate both a grasp of the content knowledge but also their ability to both follow and give instructions. Such is in the learning indicator that reads, "Students follow oral and written directions to participate in classroom activities, and provide directions to peers in selected interactions." ( ESL.C.9-12.4.1.7) I could assess these points in a few ways, how well the student created the video, the video's content, and was the lesson successful with the peer who completed it.
