Just weeks prior to the start of the MAC program, I was living on the southern island of Kyushu in Japan. It was a tropical paradise with turquoise blue waters and lush green mountains. It would be a perfect destination for almost any traveller... But I was not a traveller. I was the sole English speaking teacher in a remote backwater of Japan and my tenor lasted a total of five years. That's a long time to be stuck in paradise with limited communication skills.
During those five year, however, I found many useful tools to help cope. One of the most useful was podcasts! Podcasts helped me stay connected to the English speaking world via NPR and BBC programming. Also, several Japanese language programs greatly advanced my own speaking skills. They made practice easy and convenient as I could perform a lesson anytime, anywhere. They were so useful that I often advised my own students to use podcasts to practice their English, but no podcast was particularly useful to them as the material rarely matched the curriculum taught at school.
This is why I found Friday's lesson on podcasting to be so exciting and pertinent. If I had taken the initiative to create structured podcast lessons that matched those from classroom textbooks, I strongly believe my students would have practiced their English more often and in a more effective manner. Japanese schools are slow to adapt to innovative teaching techniques and essentially refuse to try anything new that would take away precious time from the pre-prescribed lesson plan. Podcasts, however, can be used by students at their leisure and hence would have taken away no time for traditional instruction.
While podcasts work quite perfectly within a foreign language classroom, I feel it would be more difficult to integrate their use in a history or social studies class. Although I can see the potential benefits of having my students listen to news reports from around the world or biographies of famous individuals, I strongly contend that it is most important that the information contained in the podcast be relevant to what we are doing in class or I would likely experience the same problems I had in Japan. In order to do so, I would likely have to create my own podcasts, which would require a great deal of time.
Once the podcasts are made, however, I could use them for several years with little modification. Another alternative might be to have my students make podcasts and have them shared amongst the class as a means of review and deeper learning of the subject matter. Either way, podcasts are a brilliant tool with many functions that I hope to make part of my classroom in the future.
It seems unlikely to be able to make podcasts a part of everyday class but perhaps they could be utilized in a once in a year lesson. For example, building off some ideas that you mentioned, students could be given different 20th century historical situations and be made to make podcasts (distressed radio calls). From a student's perspective, this perhaps would add some motivation and excitement to the grind.
ReplyDeleteKyushu sounds beeeauuuuutiful. Picturesque. You did an excellent job with your description. Although I have never been there so I truly have no idea. ☺ But based on your description, it sounds like a place that I would like to visit.
ReplyDeleteSole English teacher for 5 years?!?! WOW! Did you ever go home for a visit?
I think that it is interesting that the Japanese schools are slow to adapt innovative technology when in times past they are ahead of us as far as the development of the latest technology. One thing I’ve read about, and maybe you can confirm, is the high respect that is given to educators there in comparison to the level of respect given to educators in the US.
Do you think that you will ever go back to Japan and teach?