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Effects of podcast-making on college students’ English speaking skills in higher education

• Cultural and Regional Perspectives
• Published: 28 July 2021
• Volume 69 , pages 2845–2867, ( 2021 )

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• H. C. Yeh 1 ,
• W. Y. Chang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1661-0431 1 ,
• H. Y. Chen 1 &
• L. Heng 1 , 2  

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Podcasts have been widely used in various fields, and their applications in English as a foreign language (EFL) learning have been mainly to improve students’ listening ability. Relatively few studies have explored how engaging EFL students in making podcasts might help develop their speaking competence. This study therefore is an investigation of the effects of making podcasts on Taiwanese university students’ speaking progress and of their perceptions of podcast-making. Seventy-seven first-year non-English majors in a Taiwanese university participated in this six-week, mixed-methods study. Data included their pre-test and post-test TOEIC speaking scores, two podcast recordings, and reflective essays. The results of this study indicate that after making podcasts, and from their first to final podcasts, the students had better speaking fluency and accuracy in which they demonstrated some significant changes, such as having fewer pauses and mispronounced words. Also, they perceived both benefits and challenges in making podcasts. Pedagogical implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

The project is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan under the grant numbers 109-2511-H-224-006-MY3 and 110-2628-H-224-001-MY2

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H. C. Yeh, W. Y. Chang, H. Y. Chen & L. Heng

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Yeh, H.C., Chang, W.Y., Chen, H.Y. et al. Effects of podcast-making on college students’ English speaking skills in higher education. Education Tech Research Dev 69 , 2845–2867 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-10026-3

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Accepted : 01 June 2021

Published : 28 July 2021

Issue Date : October 2021

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-021-10026-3

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A CLASSROOM ACTION RESEARCH: IMPROVING SPEAKING SKILLS THROUGH INFORMATION GAP ACTIVITIES

The research was based on a preliminary study on the causes of problems related to the students " inability to speak English. One of the research objectives is to describe the atmosphere in improving speaking by using activities in the Information Gap Technique (IGT). The researcher and the collaborator worked together in designing the lesson plans, implementing the actions, making observations and reflecting on the results. The subjects of this research study were second semester students from the English Department at Almuslim University. This study was conducted in three cycles following the procedures for action research, namely planning, implementing, observing and reflecting. To collect data, the researcher used instruments of observations, lists, tests and questionnaires. The data obtained was presented in two ways, qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings showed that IGT activities were effective in improving the speaking abilities of the student in class. This can be seen from the improvements after each cycle. This can be seen by the rise in the students " mean scores in the test results: 58.8 in the first cycle, 68 in the second cycle and 81.3 in the third cycle. Improvement was also seen based on the results from the observations that showed positivity, and good responses from the students. From the questionnaire results, it was found that the mean score for the students " perception was 3,616. This means that the students responded positively to the implementation of this technique.

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