Educational Podcasting!

I have viewed several podcasts over the years but had not truly concentrated on them until recently. While exploring the various podcasts available, I found that there were many different types and topics. My initial opinion of a podcast was a sort of video that discussed recent news. However, through my exploration, I found a lot of audio podcasts that discussed a wide range of topics and did so in a way that made listening to podcasts enjoyable and entertaining.

I found my favorite podcast so far on PodCastAwards.com. This site provided a variety of great podcasts. The one that I found most interesting and quite funny is called This American Life. The podcast I chose to concentrate on from this site is titled 511: The Seven Things You're Not Supposed to Talk About (aired on November 8, 2013). This podcast revolves around a set of rules for conversation as established by the producer's mother. These rules include notions such as never discussing sleep, dreams, diet, health, route, money, and more. Her reasoning is due to the fact that these topics are either boring or vulgar. The podcast is very funny due to the fact that the mother of the producer has a very strong opinion and the producer capitalizes on the obscurity of her statements.

I think this podcast would be a great way to bring up pragmatic competence in the ESL classroom. It is very important for ESL students to understand what the cultural norms of American society include. For this reason, I think that this podcast would be a great way to begin a topic concerning conversational norms. The students would be able to discuss what they think are appropriate conversational topics in various situations and between various people in society. Overall, this is a very important lesson and I think it would be great for the students to not only practice their listening skills by listening to the podcast but also the content of the podcast is directly relevant to their study of American culture.