Reflection: Listening and Speaking

CALL, to me, has special significance when it comes to listening and speaking.  Traditionally, it's always been easier to acquire authentic reading material and assign reading and writing tasks to be completed outside of class.  But CALL tools allow for more convenient location and use of aural channels outside of the classroom, and several of the articles this week have pointed out how much of a boon this is, especially for EFL contexts.

What I'd like to talk about today is podcasts.  I think there's a lot of potential here, both in terms of finding/utilizing authentic/semi-authentic input for listening and creating opportunities for controlled speaking practice (that hopefully involves lots of student-initiated form-focused events).  I've been using podcasts for my own language learning/practice (in Korean), and I'd like to show you all three interesting types of podcasts.  Before getting to the podcasts, here's a link to the Android app I've been using on my smartphone to find, download, and listen to podcasts:  Podkicker

You probably won't be able to understand these podcasts (they're in Korean!).  But that's okay- I'd like you to think about rate of speech, prosody (expressive intonation), and interactional features (pauses, hesitations, dysfluencies, repairs, backchannels).

#1  A Korean News Podcast - NHK (Japanese BBC) Korean News Program
This is a program intended for people fluent in Korean.

#2  A Korean as a Foreign Language Podcast


 This is intended for intermediate/advanced KFL learners.  Audio-only is available as well.

#3 A student created Korean podcast - UC Berkeley Korean Podcast
This is a student-made podcast, done by upper intermediate/advanced learners (including a heritage speaker).

I think these offer some very distinct forms of input to learners.  Ignoring the vocabulary (#1 is more demanding than 2 and 3, which are somewhat equal), there are obvious differences in rate of speech (#3 is noticeably slower), interactional features (#2 has a great deal of interaction, #3 is well-represented, and #1 is highly planned), and prosody (#2 has more expressive, or animated, prosodic features, #1 is highly authentic in prosody for its register/genre- even to non-Korean speakers, I'd guess it sounds news-like).

I'm particularly interested in #3.  Student-created podcasts weren't covered by the Robins article as potential sources of input, but I feel that they allow for some degree of vocabulary/rate of speed control while still being situated in somewhat authentic interaction, and could be suitable as listening passages for learners of a lower level.

I'd like to hear anyone's thoughts or impressions regarding these foreign language podcasts!