Podcast-ESL Pod.com

The theme of today is Podcast. So what is Podcast? I believe some of you may be confused about what it is, but nevermind, let’s see what it is.

According to Wikipedia, a podcast is a series of digital-media files which are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and computers. The term podcast, like broadcast, can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated; the latter is also called podcasting. The host or author of a podcast is often called a podcaster.

In a brief sentence, it is an audio allow you to download in your computer or portable equipment such as mp3.

Here’s one good podcast for you—ESL Pod.com
The website English as a Second Language Podcast is designed for ESL learners, covering various topics of podcast for users to download. Besides audio and scripts, there are also some questions or challenges to test your comprehension. These questions can be asked in the form of multiple choices, match maker or fill in the blanks. My instructor also recommended us a software called “hot potato” which is a free ware used to create question forms like I mentioned above. You can give it a try if you are interested in “do it on your own.”

The podcast I choose this time is ESL Podcast 363 – Using the Telephone. It is a piece of dialogue between one man and women about finding the telephone number of a friend during the power outage. Before the dialogues take place, there is an introduction which I considered an annoying advertisement. However, since it is free, we’ll just tolerate that. LOL!

The speed of the speakers is pretty slow which is perhaps a good thing for beginner; however, I found it too slow. It would be better if I can adjust the speed of the podcast.
But well, in the last part of the podcast, they would finally offer the normal speed.

Another thing for us to pay attention is that listen carefully to their pronunciation and intonation. But keep it your mind that it is not normal speed, you’ll probably seen weird if you talk like this.

Again, like Randall’s, there are various topics from many fields to choose from. And after the dialogue there are also exquisite explanation of the dialogue, the sentence, and the vocabularies. I really appreciate the efforts of ESL podcast in doing this fine explanation; however, there is too much advertisement in the clips. I hope they will work on this a little bit.