VOA - Voice of America

The Voice of America, which first went on the air in 1942, is a multimedia international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government through the Broadcasting Board of Governors. VOA broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of news, information, educational, and cultural programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 115 million people.

Their Special English series features boasts an enormous archive of easy English at a slower than usual speech rate. The archive has a search function and the topics are varied. Broadcasts come with transcripts and the audio files come in different formats. You can also have the stories sent to you by e-mail.

I use their stories frequently in my classrooms; sometimes I add listening comprehension questions; When the recordings are very long, I edit the podcasts with audacity.

Nobel Prize report on Grameen
VOA Home

WAXXI - interactive podcasts

Waxxi is a presenter and producer of live and archived interactive podcasts. Created out of a need in the read/write/web environment, in podcasts, which are linear in nature. Typically, there are one or a few people interviewing one or a few, and us listening. Why not invite people to participate in the podcast, to ask the questions and interact with the guests…and each other?

So was born Waxxi’s Interactive Podcasts. The invitation is open to anyone who wants to be a part of the experience, and have the chance to ask our guests a question, or comment on something relative to the topic.

On Thursday, April 5, 2007 Waxxi hosted a global conversation with Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. People from the US, Europe and Canada joined in for a talk about Wikia, free and transparent search, Wikipedia, Google, and much more.Before and after the event, some of the participants blogged about it

How it worked: Waxxi's interactive 'casts allow you to be a part of the conversation and podcast experience as it happens, rather than just listen after the recording. That means you'll be able to talk to our guests, ask a question or comment on the conversation either by phone (toll free within the US, direct dial outside the US) or simultaneous chat/IM. Waxxi also offers live audio streaming, so you don't have to call in to participate.

However you choose, you are an important part of the experience: that's the whole idea. Enjoy!

Download the Podcast

JobDig for economics classes

JobDig is a great site for job seekers and econ teachers; they feature career advice in text audio and video form; JobDig offers podcasts for career advice, resume tips, and ways to improve your job-hunting abilities.

The articles feature industry experts and will help you improve your skills and abilities! The podcasts they feature are fairly short and can well be used in economy clases; e.g. there is one about interviewing questions, in which Heather Eagar talks about interview questions. Knowing the types of questions will help you know what the interviewer wants to know, how to answer, and what questions are illegal.

JobDig Jobseekers and Career podcasts

Reel Reviews - Movies reported!

Reel Reviews is hosted and produced by Michael W. Geoghegan. It's a guy who selects films he personally recommends. Standard reviews run about 15 minutes in length. The longer “Cinephile” series takes a more in-depth look at classic and/or cult movies, with a run time of 30 minutes or more per episode.
Superfly e.g. is one of the first blaxploitation films; he starts out about characters, themes,....background information. Interesting film speak, definitely something for geeks! But can also be used in ESL classes.
Check out the excellent podcatsing solutions book M. Geoghegan wrote!

Reel Reviews

Monster Podcasts

The podcast features two series offering advice on finding a job, career advancement and personal development. There is a new episode each week and they are highly professional. I use their podcasts when teaching my students about job applications and interviewing in English. Students listen to an episode in groups of two or three and then present the information in a presentation ot compile a list on career advice. There is lots of other interesting material on the site. I find this an interesting example of integrating a professional podcast into the classroom.

Monster Podcasts

Breaking News in English

Breaking News in English has been around for a couple of years and features excellent podcasts from Sean Banville for learners of English as a second language; the news reports are free and there are several new lessons a week; each comes with a resource pack full of exercises and tasks. All lessons are based on stories currently in the news - as the world's news breaks. The lessons can be downloaded in various formats are graded according to levels.

Breaking News in English

Shadow Reading for a better Pronunciation

Remember shadow reading? It's a funny way to improve your students' pronunciation; have them listen to a dialog and assign a specific task to them; e.g. fill in the missing words or something similar; when all students have the correct version of the dialog play it again. Assign Speaker A to one half of the group and Speaker B to the other half of the group and have the students read along with the recording. To make the task a bit more kinesthetic have the students stand up whenever their part comes up.

This is not a podcast specific task but I have found the ELT podcast useful for this task; the podcast features Theme-based conversations and language practice for students of English, such as EFL, ESL and ESOL. The dialogs have two or more speakers and the mp3 files include a transcript; for levels beginner – university students.

Do you like stories?

A few podcasts tell stories: one such site is Story Nory, a podcast that features stories from Bertie the frog; among the stories told you can find fairy tales, fables and many more. You can download the story via iTunes or listen to it online. The site features among my favorites "Alice in Wonderland" in installments with a wonderful voice to read it. Cinderella is the all time favorite according to their blog. There are quite a few other story podcasts available; Sometimes I read stories with my students and then have them listen to them or listen to parts of the stories with them.

Story Nory Website

NYT - Most emailed articles

Most emailed articles – this has become quite a popular feature on the Internet. When you read an interesting piece of news or see an interesting cartoon, you may want to share it with a friend. Providers of websites and magazines often include a feature which makes emailing this quite easy. This feature often has names like “Email this article to a friend” and makes it easy to send a news piece to another person, but also gives newspapers a chance to see, where the interests of their readers are.

Find out what NYTimes.com readers are most interested in today. James Barron, a reporter at The New York Times, summarizes the three most e-mailed articles every weekday.

This podcast could be used to have the students write out the article after listening to the podcast and then identify the articles from the online paper. I think it could also be great for summarizing skills.

• Other podcasts from the NYT can be found following this link
• For the most popular articles in writing

Nach Themen suchen bei eslpod.com

ESL Podcast ist, wie der Name bereits sagt, eine Podcast Seite für Englischlernende, die schon recht lange Zeit besteht, dementsprechend groß auch das Angebot an Beiträgen auf der Seite. Bei mehr als 300 Episoden wird das suchen nach älteren im Archiv stehenden Podcasts oft etwas mühsam.
Die Betreiber haben hier eine tolle Suchmöglichkeit eingebaut, so dass mithilfe von sogenannten Tags einfach nach Themengebieten gesucht werden kann. Suche ich z.B. eine Hörübung zum Thema Dining, durchsucht die Suchmaschine alle podcasts die diesen Tag besitzen und ich erhalte übersichtlich in Listenformat eine Reihe von brauchbaren Ergebnissen.
Af diese Art und Weise kann ich zum Beispiel einfach eine Themen-CD erstellen oder mehreren SchülerInnen unterschiedliche Hörverstehensübungen zur Verfügung stellen.


Suchergebnisse zum Thema Dining
Webseite von ESL Podcast