English Podcasts: Their Impact on the Listening Skills of Students

Abstract

A quasi-experimental study looked into the role of English Podcasts on the listening skills of English students at Mindanao State University – Lanao Norte Agricultural College. Some students were chosen at random for the study, and their listening ability (consisting of pronunciation, vocabulary, and comprehension) was tested by pre- and post-tests. Researchers also investigated students’ perception on podcasts in English, focusing on the preferred subjects (such as educational, business, and true crime) and including musicians among podcasters. Besides, it investigated how these observations related to the students’ listening abilities. Students kept expressing positive opinions about English podcasts, indicating that the respondents’ were willing to use this media. Both groups saw some progress in their listening skills during the study period, but it was only the experimental group, which worked with English podcasts as learning material, that noticed a big improvement from the pre-test to the post-test, especially in pronunciation and the use of vocabulary. An important point is that students who had positive views on English podcasts did show an improvement in their listening skills. Therefore, the study suggests that educators motivate students to explore different kinds of podcasts. By doing this, we can make good use of the students’ positive attitudes to sharpen their skills in listening and introduce them to different types of language used by people.