Podcast at school: Fostering listening comprehension skill using podcast with eighth graders.

Abstract

Listening has always been an important skill to develop for an effective communication. Nevertheless, students find it as one of the most difficult skill to develop when learning a foreign language. This project aimed to evaluate the contribution of the podcast in class to foster eighth graders’ listening comprehension skills at a private school. In order to answer the main question, participants’ difficulties and interests were considered through the use of a questionnaire and a focus group as well as the comparison of the results of a pretest and posttest. The post test results suggested that eighth graders had an important progress regarding their listening skills. Likewise, the questionnaire and focus group revealed the students’ like towards the podcasts. The findings obtained in this research study showed the podcast as an alternative and functional tool to be used in the classroom when working on the listening skills in contrast with the use of material such as the audio from the English books. As a result, we suggest to consider the possibility of including podcasts in the English classes at this school and others in order for students to be effective when listening to information in English.