 OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. On the air, using and creating podcasts in the ESL classroom. OTAN Technology and Distance Learning Symposium 2020. Thank you for being here. Our presentation is on the air. And so we'll talk about how we have used and now how we are creating podcasts in our ESL classes. So a little bit about ourselves. My name is Gracia. I'm an ESL instructor. We both work for California College of Communications. In that school, I right now teach the professional program, which is a business English class. And I have my colleague. And my name is Celine. And the same, I work at California College of Communication. And I teach reading, listening, and speaking, and grammar writing for level five and six, which are the highest level in the school. So just a quick overview of what we'll do today. We'll start with a quick intro of what podcasts are. I'll give you a quick overview of how we've used podcasts in our classes. And then we'll walk you through a step-by-step process of how we've now started creating podcasts, or students are creating podcasts. And then we'll come to the strategies and consideration. We will see if you have questions. We will hopefully answer your questions. And don't forget to evaluate this presentation on the OTAN website. So just to start us with to hear from you, just think about the questions that are here on the board on your own. Find a partner, someone who's close to you, and discuss the questions and share your answers. And then we'll have you share with the group. So just discuss what is a podcast if you know, or have you used podcasts in your classes if so when. And then what is your experience with them? And have you ever created podcasts? So yeah, take a few moments and discuss in your tables or with whoever's close to you, just to have an idea. So yeah, today it's all about creating podcasts with your students in the ESL environment. So having them creating their own. So just a quick overview of what podcasts are. So yeah, so digital audio or video. And then it is available on an online platform. What is really important for Grazia and I is that it is authentic material. Authentic is definitely paramount for us. So why have we decided to integrate them as part of our classes? And why are we having now students create them? So there are a couple of differences between using in class and creating in class. They are also common grounds. So critical thinking when you use a podcast, it helps them to make their own judgment, knowing why does the journalist tell me that? What does he want me to think? What does he want me to know? What is the message behind it? And then when they create on their own, there's a lot of collaboration happening. So they work as a team to create a product that they can then showcase to the class. When we listen, when we use in class, it is more about note-taking skills. We listen and they take notes and then we share the notes. And then in creating, we try to focus on more of their writing skills. So how they are writing a script that they can then record. And it's all about stimulating topics, like social issues, current issues. We talked a lot about guess impeachment. We talked a lot about the election coming and also like international news. And then when they create, obviously it's more about their own creativity. So they choose the topic, they create their own. They have the autonomy on connecting to a topic that they are interested in. And in class, actually, very often in the morning, I have maybe five or six if we just listen and I have them choose. And then obviously communication is shared by both because they have to convey ideas both when they are discussing about it, something we used in class or when they are creating and recording. And then it develops their cultural awareness, particularly in our environment. We have students coming from all around the world. So sometimes they are shocked to see the differences between their country and the United States. So it's very nice to exchange about that as well. Sorry, it helps them because they are here. So to understand and how to behave in this conflict. Yeah. And then it builds motivation because once they realize and they know how to access podcasts on their own, they become more motivated and self-driving learners who can access and practice English outside of the classroom. And the last one obviously helps us be more innovative in our teaching and it makes the environment of learning for them as well more unique and fun. So how to use podcasts and then create podcasts? So for the use in class, I mainly use NPR and PBS. I start with PBS because it's easier. They can see the images. And then NPR comes as a shock because it's much faster. So later. And I use them in my academic classes for listening and speaking. Grazia uses more like for discussion practice in her business English classes. And normally we function with a worksheet. We have pre-listening questions. It will be more about brainstorming. What do you know about the topic? And then after that, during comprehension questions, they take notes or fill in the blanks. So we can have many different exercises. And post-listening is more about the topic of the podcast. And this is where also critical thinking comes. Yeah, so I'll walk you through briefly one example of what a podcast I used in the Human Resource Management Unit in the Business English class I teach. The podcast title is Psychometric Tests in Recruitment. So we were talking about recruitment and the way I built the worksheet was like we said with a small warmer. In this case, some discussion questions about the topic. If they've taken those tests, helps activate prior knowledge and they become more interested in the topic. And then we always try to have a short vocabulary section. Podcasts, like we said, are authentic materials so they're not created for the ESL classroom. A lot of the language that you find there is idiomatic or phrasal verbs that are very commonly used. So we identify words we think may cause problems and discuss them, pre-teach them before they listen. And then during the listening activity, the focus, as we said, is on note taking. For higher levels, as you see here, it's more open-ended questions where they listen actively for details and take notes to answer. And the post-listing in this case looks like a discussion in small groups where they again discuss what they learned or what was interesting. Exactly, yes, they do. And that's how we build the worksheets with the transcript. And again, this is based on NPR podcasts mainly. All NPR podcasts, very good question. Yeah, that's the strategy we use. We basically use the transcript to create this. Yeah, and the post-listing can look differently, right? Sometimes we have them prepare an oral presentation based on the topic or do a small response writing. So that's what we've been doing. And we've been doing podcasts in our classes for the past two years already. So now we realize it's a very fun activity. Students already are very familiar with how podcasts work and how to listen to them. So we decided to kind of switch roles a little bit and have them be instead of just consumers of the media, be the creators of the media to enhance other types of skills in the classroom. So we work in two different contexts. For me, it's academic program. And this podcast we are going to talk about today is from my reading class. So it is turning a little article into a podcast. So it's an article-based approach. And of course it integrates all the skills like writing and also listening and speaking. And then for mine, in my business English class, it's more of our research-based approach and I use it as the end of module activity. So they just choose a topic based on the unit theme and they do research on it to create a script and then record. So we'll walk you through some of the steps. So first we give them a worksheet, very detailed, very developed. And after that, they have to choose an article. So we will just quickly go through that now and detail more later. So they choose with me, they choose an article. And then for business class, like I said, it's topic-based. So they choose a topic that relates to the theme. And then they do some individual reading. They have the article, they work on their own. They work at least three times. And for me, they start doing research on the topic they selected. And then fair sharing. And then for me, they do group discussion because usually I work in bigger groups than just pairs. And after that, we write the script, we record, and we publish. So we'll walk you through the steps in more details. So the first step is giving the worksheet. So the worksheet is, I don't know, probably three pages, something like that. It is really detailed. Basically, it gives them a full autonomy. They have their worksheet, they know what to do, and they just follow. So clear direction, clear steps. And it's a Google doc. They just need to make a copy. And then they work directly on their copy. We can intervene, we can spy, we can see where they are. It is very, very convenient. Yeah, and it provides the scaffolding they need, especially when script writing, because it's the first time they're written a script. So it gives them that guide that they need to really take autonomy of the task, but at the same time have some guidance to know where they're going. Yeah, and I noticed that they always want to know what comes after. If you tell them read before, it is not enough at all. They really want to know where we are going. So this is why this detailed worksheet, they work really well. And so the second step is the article selection. So I tried to find articles from current events, about history, so what I use mainly is the week. I really like it where we see it every week at the school. It's a compilation of articles from other newspapers. So to me it's really reliable. And I will show you later, but you have very short articles to medium size, to quite a size, to very big size articles. So you can work in a lot of different ways. It's a lot of material to use. And also, yeah, once again, authentic material. In my case, because they do have to choose a topic, it has to be in this step. The topic is related to the unit theme to give you an example when we were doing HR management. I gave them a list of topics that we did not discuss in class. HR management is a very large field. So there's a lot of things that they can explore. And they choose from a list. They have freedom of exploration because they can relate to the unit that we studied in a more personal way. And as I mentioned earlier, for me, this works as my summary of assessment because it's the end of the module activity. So the final project. As for me, it is formative assessment. So we will read probably two short stories. And then after that, we have a break and we talk about some news. And I forgot to say that. So there are autonomies in the selection. I will choose before, but they will have, for example, if I have five groups, I will have 10 different articles for them to choose from. And I have short articles so it can be about the US and it can be about the world. And depending on the level I work with, I also have these like half-page articles. This one is about technology. So really providing things they want to read, things they know a little about, they want to learn about, like intriguing for them. And after that comes the reading. So they read on their own individually, at least three times. And I insist that they have a pen and they are active readers. Underline, put an exclamation mark, like really so that when you read back, you know already a little. And then I don't want them to make any research because I want them to focus on the material they have in these few lines. And if they go online, they spend a lot of time losing themselves and they don't bring anything back. So this is very important. And the focus while they are reading is about the vocabulary. I insist that I really want them to try to understand the full article and then making sense, making meanings of the word in context. And after that, of course, it's all about comprehension and critical thinking. Once again, like where are we going with this article? For my class, because it's a research-based approach, in this step they, in their small groups, assign roles and that means they split research. So what questions they will ask and who is going to look for what information. So the focus is more on the teamwork and collaboration skills. Obviously critical thinking because they have to together come up with the right questions to ask. And then research skills because they practice finding information in reliable sources based on the questions they came up with. And the step number four is sharing the discussion. So I always spare them, they were two students and they report back to each other. So to make sense together, to build up the meaning. So they collaborate, focus is once again on collaboration. They share their understanding and critical thinking. What I want them to do is really share what they understood and answer the question. It's like a ping-pong. It's very beautiful to see them work together actually and use dictionary if like ultimately, if you really don't understand this word, ultimately go to the dictionary but it has to be an English dictionary. And then in this step of sharing and discussion after they do the research, here is where they report back on the research from the questions they were looking information for. So focus is on critical thinking because when they come together they decide on what their main argument of the topic will be as well as agree on which content they will use from all that research that they captured, what will they pretty much use in the script writing later on. And then here one important step is that throughout, it's a very student-centered activity. So they are really the owners of the activity but we are facilitators. Here is one step or stage where we really come in to make sure that before they write the script they are going in the right direction. For Selene, whether that's, did they understand the article and the topic in the right way? What type of help do they need? What challenges are they facing that we can address? And in my case it's like, did you find enough information? Where did you find it? Are you asking the right questions about the topic? What's your argument? What are you going to write your script about? So here is an important place where we jump in to the activity. And step five is all about writing their script. So for me, as I have different types of articles they need to assign role. There are two, so they need two roles. So it can really be very varied. You can have a policeman questioning a victim, questioning a perpetrator. You can have an anchor on like they pretend they are PBS or NPR, and receiving a specialist, a scientist, the CIA, the one we are going to listen is about like the CIA. So it is a lot of creativity here. And so we focus on writing skills because they need to paraphrase. I want them to use their own words. I don't want them to copy. So they really need to be creative. They collaborate in this writing. And then they exercise their creativity because they convey their ideas in their own way. They express their feelings. Obviously there's critical thinking because they have to think critically about who's our audience. How do we need to convey this in a clear manner to make this argument or the story effective? And then here is another stage where we jump in to offer support because it's writing. So we want to make sure that before they record there are no mistakes, that they're going in the right direction, that it sounds natural. We use a lot of Google Docs. So Google Docs, like we mentioned, the worksheet is on Google Docs. So when they write the script, it's also a shared document where we, in real time, start editing with them or giving feedback as they write. And here, probably more for me than for Grazia. When they read an article, they will tend to ask one question, all right? And then the specialist will answer, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and give all the details and done. So this is also where I try to guide them like to make a kind of ping-pong. One answer, one question, as when we listen to the PR, like the authentic material. And after that, the fun part, exciting part, the recording. So they use their own phone and the focus is here on communication, speaking skills about the fluency, about their pronunciation. They are pushed to improvise and collaboration because when they record, they can criticize each other, say, oh, maybe you should say this, maybe you should say that, oh, I like that. And we make several recordings because we want them to kind of forget the phone and start to have fun. And when after a couple, they really have fun and they start to be more natural and relaxed and it is... And then again, creativity comes in this stage because not only are they sometimes improvising and coming up with their own words and ideas and express themselves, but also after they record, when they do the sound editing, we introduce them to two tools that are optional and they can use, which are written here, GarageBand, which is the screenshot you see there. It's for iOS, so if they have a Mac and they want to add sound effects, they can use that. For Windows users, they can use Audacity and sometimes they just come up with their own sound effects, like with their voices to make the podcast sound a little bit more fun and realistic, like NPR or PBS at the start. So I'll just play a very short clip of two examples. The first one, when some students used GarageBand to add some sound effects. And the second one, an example where they created their own sound effects at the beginning. To this podcast. Ha ha ha! My name is Renato and I'll be hosting today's podcast. I'm here today with Dr. Park, a quantum physicist from South Korea. Yeah, he's a specialist in social media behavior. Hello, Renato. It's a pleasure being here. Ha ha ha! So that's one for the Business English class they did on social media and then another one where they created their own sound effects at the beginning to make it more fun. Ha ha ha! Hi, my name is Marcia. Welcome to NPR News. We are here today to talk about what happened in Iran last January at Ukraine International Plan was shared out by the Iranian Islamic regime. Among the videos. So just a clip of how they are editing and having some fun. Yeah, and as we can hear, like there is an introductory sentence and very often when they write the script they completely forget about that and they start recording it. It's like, hello, who did that? And then I'm like, no, you cannot do that. You need to, you know, bring the food on a platter, I say, like introduce your topic. Introduce your guests. We need to know what you're going to talk about. You need a little sentence to, you know, so it's really nice to see how they find it really, they have a lot of fun. Yeah, last step. And so last step is publishing. So I want to thank Cindy here who... We learned about this at Katesel. At Katesel, we went to her presentation and we started actually building up our website during your workshop. So we used that. And then we added this step in our podcast usage. So I have one for each of my class. So here is the level five and no problem. And so I share that I publish it and they can all access this. So as you see, you have all my, the topic I teach and then for the reading. So here is the one about the podcast. They can find the worksheet here. And if they click, it opens in big. And after that, I would put only two for today. So we can listen in the class. We can listen from this. And at home, they can also listen. So let's listen. So this is mine, right? Yeah. I'm here to talk about even that happened in the America plane in New York, Afghanistan. Today, I do interview Lucas from the CAA. Welcome to KALCC Podcast. Hello, Chihiru. Thank you for inviting me today. So could you explain what happened in the United States? This week, we have recovering the bodies of two US service members who died in a plane crash in Afghanistan. So here we have, so it's from a small article, a very short one. And so about a plane crash in Afghanistan, all right. And so they decided because one, they were reporting some like intelligence, said that blah, blah, blah. So they decided the rule would be one from NPR, one of the CAA. I love the way she says, this is Lucas from the CAA. And so they decided to cut the, so I invite them to really have short questions and short answers. It is also easier for them. And it makes all the process more understandable when we listen. And so having this step of publishing on a class website really helps with a lot of things. More than anything, we can do some peer editing and feedback, so we can listen as a class and discuss what's working, what's not. Maybe next time you should think about doing this differently or pronouncing this differently. It's very fun and motivating for them to see that their work is published and shared in the class. Yeah, and that builds that sense of pride and confidence because they realized they were able to create a podcast to work together and publish something. So it might be the first draft. Yeah, the one with the sound effects was the published one. And to be honest, we haven't been doing that for a long, long time. So you can see the motorcycle on the street and so we need to be a little more professional ourselves. We need to put them in a room far from the street because sometimes you can hear a lot of movement. So we are beginners, but still they have fun. And so to finish, on the website, they can listen and also they have the script. And can you open it because we have time? Thank you. So on the website, they will also find in my reading section, for example, the short stories we read. So they have, this is the PDF. If they click, they have the PDF file. This is my spreadsheet for the vocabulary and then a YouTube link to see the biography of the writer, for example. And I do a lot, a lot of slides, for example, because we really have time, so maybe we can just show you. But we still need to have strategy. So for the writing, we have a book but I really like when my students look at me rather than their book. And so I have slides for all my chapters and they can access, they can review before the exams and they really like it. I really encourage you to use that. It's lovely, Google Drive is amazing. I'm a fan. And then a few strategies and considerations to think about when you're doing that. Choosing the content is important. Something you are knowledgeable about because if they read and they ask you a question you need to be able to answer. And something you feel comfortable discussing. Also, it is important that the student interest is at stake here. So you want to have things that they really want to read. And somehow they know a little about. Sometimes they are not very, very into it but when they read after that and when you explain a little, it works. Reliable sources and updated. So I mainly use the week for that also. Well, there are a lot of sources available online. Yeah, even the VR, the podcast that they offer, they have an article of it as well so you can use that as the reading article before they actually create a podcast on it. A lot of articles on PR, yes, every day. And BBS, the same. Yeah, sorry. And for me, so it's a part of an ongoing lesson. If you find an article related to what you talked about, for example, I had an entire section of the book about the aging of the workforce and I had an article about the aging population in the United States, so we use that. Because it is about using an article to create podcasts and also using podcasts in class. And also it can be a standalone class. And for Grazia, it's even an exam. Yeah, for me, it's their final project. And it's a fun way of assessing their knowledge of the topic. It's business English and it's communication skills. So I really need to assess how they convey ideas, how they research, how they understand the module. In this case, human resources, for example. So, and they don't feel like it's a test because it's not a written multiple choice. One month, every month is a different module. So at the end of each month, they do a final project. Sometimes the final project is the podcast. Not for every module, but for a few of them, I've already tried this. And as for me, I think I spend, I would say three sessions of 50 minutes. Particularly the first time you do it with them because they need to understand the process, they need to get used to it. So it's a lot, but it's a lot of skills. So I mean, I don't like, we don't lose our time. And when we're creating podcasts, so the very important thing is to have good guidelines. So you need a solid worksheet so that they can do some scaffolding. And the final product, if I may say, is two or three minutes long. So this is also why it's important for them to really cut one question, one answer, one question because otherwise it is too short. So we've mainly discussed how we use them in my business class, which is very high advanced level and Selene's class, which is advanced and high advanced. But you can also adapt it to different levels. I used to teach level three, which is the intermediate level and I already used, I didn't create podcasts with them, but I used them in the class. And rather than opening the questions, which is why I do for the note taking section with business class, for them it was more guided notes or skeleton notes, where they just fill in the lines with specific words or details. They had a lot of fun. And NPR can be rather fast, but this website online tone generator, it's really nice because you can adapt the pace of the audio and it still keeps its natural sound, it doesn't sound robotic, and you can adapt it to different paces. So that worked really well when I did it with level three. And when it comes to creating podcasts, obviously like we've shown, these are long scripts that they spent time doing. But if you have a beginner level class, you may have them do a five line conversation on introducing themselves in the form of an audio and podcasts that they share with the class. So it can be adapted to different levels. As I mentioned, it's throughout a student center activity because they are the ones running most of the stages and of the steps, but we are there as facilitators. So as teachers, we need to consider that our role will be very different in an activity like this. We are no longer just giving knowledge, but we are monitoring and facilitating, but letting them themselves be the ones who are taking charge of their learning. And it can be very rewarding as teachers as well to take on that role when students are driving the learning. To be needed. They need you. They read and they call teacher, and then they, so I am not sure, do you think it is this or it is that? And there is much more like interaction, so much more in this setting. And some other considerations about promoting metacognition, it develops critical awareness about their own learning. It's a good way for them to do self-assessment, self-correcting, because when they hear their voice, sometimes they are like, ooh, not good. And also, yeah, a lot of reflection. And also we use a lot of Google form. So Google form. So after the activity, you can create a Google form and they can assess their opinion and how they did. If they think that, okay, I understood 50%, and so it is also interesting. So yeah, it works like a ping pong, right? They ask themselves and each other what's working, what I can do better. So throughout you can integrate these metacognitive strategies to have them think about how they're learning and how they are doing. And with that it's connected to helping them also develop more pragmatic language skills, not only when using them, because when you use podcasts in the class, they really hear real people, real language in real context and they can start understanding or identifying discourse markers, for example, and how people have a conversation naturally. And then when they're creating, they think about what to say and how to say it so it sounds more natural and it can develop those skills that help them interact in a more natural way. So it's good for both familiarizing themselves with how pragmatic language works, as well as trying to they themselves reflect on that and put that into practice when they record it. So sometimes like Celine said at the beginning, when they record, they don't think about that. They just robotically read the script off, but then with our guideline, they start realizing that it has to sound natural and then we can go back to the podcast you heard in class and have them reflect on how the interview goes, right? What are they saying that sounds more natural? Identifying like I said, the discourse markers, like what are those phrases you can use rather than just a silent period and then next question and next question, but more naturally talk about the topic. What is funny is that so they record and instead of the acknowledge they're not, so I'm like, because they can't hear you, right? So this like what you, I see, all these little connectors, all these little signals that show that you are listening, you understand and you really want to know more about the subject. And also I encourage them when we talk about natural reaction is also like give your feeling if someone tells you something horrible, be horrified and say, oh my God, that's terrible. Oh, that's great. So really trying to add these little signals showing, well, making it more natural. Yeah, conveying language in a more natural way. And once they understand that, that's where they start to have a lot of fun because they improvise and they are so proud of themselves after that. It's amazing. Yeah, yeah. Because textbooks usually, especially for listening and speaking, right? They are not necessarily good for these. So a bit flat. Yeah, so that's why when we started integrating NPR and PBS, we realized it really helps them with that. And now that we've been using them for maybe six months, so we're still learning, but we've realized that it's really helping them with that. And as you've seen throughout, we try to kind of use this framework of the 21st century forces, the forces throughout our activities. So first one is communication because they share information they understand and they express their opinion, they express their repulsion. So it is a key part. And then obviously it's about their collaboration. It's not an activity they do on their own. So whether they're reading an article and understanding it together through discussion or they're creating a product together, it really builds community in the class. They feel like they are a team. Yeah, and collaboration works also when you listen to a podcast because I didn't tell you that before because I tend to listen to podcasts every morning as a warmup waiting for everybody to be here. And of course, I don't create a worksheet every morning. So we listen and we make sense together. We build up the understanding of what they say. And this week, for example, I had an entire sentence from NPR. I needed 10 students to make the full sentence. So it's really collaboration because it was so fast and someone had one word, the second word, the third word and up together, the full sentence was on the board. And they like it, they demand, they want in the morning, they're like, teacher, can we listen to a podcast? And they say Judy because it's PBS lady and we listen to PBS a lot. So can we have Judy this morning? So yeah, it's really nice. Yeah, it's great. I love Judy. And that's how that starts building critical thinking, right? Because you start moving beyond the reading textbook or the unit theme. They make personal connections, especially in my class, it's been like that, like they discover topics within the unit theme in a more personal way and then they think critically about it. So it's kind of moving as beyond the regular, standard textbook-based approach. So it really helps them think beyond. And if I may add something, it also helps them outside of the school because as I tell them, you cannot always talk about the weather. Oh, it's nice today, end of the conversation. You need to know a little, you need to be able to exchange to ask questions and it's a good, it's a cultural awareness also and they connect to the target culture and then they can talk about things that are going on in their environment besides the weather. And obviously with this new approach of having them actually create podcasts, creativity is at the forefront because like we said, we're moving them from just consuming the media in our classes to creating the media themselves. And that really makes them 21st century learners because it also builds technology skills. If you think about it, they know how to use Google Docs, they know how that works, they know how to publish on our plus website, they know how to record and edit sound. So it really builds those skills that they can use outside, right? Those events of the skills. All of these are those of the skills and as we heard in the keynote yesterday, those are the skills that we really need to integrate in our classes because they're not explicitly getting them in the courses. So activities such as these can really help promote those skills within the class. Yeah, and that's it. And just ending before we do some Q&A and discussion, it's a quote from some of the students in the advanced group. Yeah, they really like it. So because creativity, of course, and also it improves the reading skills. It's a great activity for them and they love at the beginning, I'm telling you they don't. But listen to themselves. Yeah, eventually they get there. Yeah, it's a hard one at best. Yeah, and then they will go, I always tell them to use Cambridge Dictionary online and then by themselves they will open Cambridge, they will listen to the pronunciation, they will repeat, it is also good for, yeah, good for their like self-learning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It gives them a good story. And it's fun and it's different. Definitely they had never done that before. As I said, the beginning is a little complicated but once they know they love it. It's a beautiful activity. They don't realize they are being assessed. Yeah, it's true. They are just having fun and creating content. But for us it's a very great way to assist. So yeah, we invite you to try it and podcast on. It's a very fun activity to integrate. And as you've seen, I mean Selene integrates their in creating class using them we've mostly done in listening and speaking. But in business it's a more integrated skills approached over all the class itself. So this really helps, like I said, with research skills and reading at the same time, summarizing, synthesizing. So all these critical, higher order thinking skills for business which they really need when they go into the workforce. So for me it's been a very great activity to kind of all in one integrate different types of skills. And we said we are kind of beginners in the field but ultimately now we are just publishing and they are accessible on our internal website. It's a class website by the way. But I think that eventually in the future we would like to use the podcast created by the previous quarter students to use them in listening class. Yeah, yeah. So that they have kind of authentic ESL students material. Yeah, yeah. And as we said, even like at the lowest level they can create a little conversation that they can record. What is your name? My name is, where are you from? Very basic question. Level one they can do that. So at the beginning it's, so I think we realized at the beginning that the worksheet for example needs to be very clear. So we just had created maybe a one page guideline at first and we realized it was challenging because the students really didn't, especially I would say in the script writing stage is where they struggled because the worksheet just gave an overview of the task but now we kind of open the script section to like think of an introduction. What was the question? So more scaffolding in the script writing really helped because it was a challenge at first. At first they just kind of wrote a mini essay and they wanted to record that but we realized it needed. And with that it kind of helped us when we use podcast in class to also reflect about how a podcast works. So think about how did they, like posing in between before they record. So how did the interviewer start the podcasts? So think about that when you're writing your script. So modeling, because at first it was a little messy, that section of script writing. Organize the ideas. So question one, like at least I asked them to write seven questions. Yeah, very explicit. Like it has to be this long, at least this long. Short questions, short answers. So yeah, so definitely from one page we went to three pages. My mistake at the beginning was that some articles were too hard and they were lost. So now I really pay attention to that. Not in terms of vocabulary, but in terms of topic. We had a very, very hard one about Germany and alt-writing Germany. And they were, it was complicated because it was a lot of references in maybe seven lines. So that was definitely a bad choice. So that was my bad. Yeah, so topic selection pretty important as a teacher. If you're doing the reading the article-based approach, make sure. But still we finished it because I really sat with them and we talked about it and we made some drawings to, okay, who is this guy? This guy did that and then the consequences are here. So if you have the lecture of time, it is still possible. Right now it's mainly their own phones. Yeah, voice recorder. And then they send by email, yeah. And then when they do the sound editing, they can send themselves the recording from their phone to their emails and upload it to the garage band, which is the iOS or the Audacity platform to edit it. Yeah, that's a great idea moving to another platform. YouTube is extremely common and popular among students. So it would be a nice, another platform to access it. So I tell them, I don't hear anything. And if I don't hear voices, you're not collaborating because collaborating means talking. So yeah, I tell them you need to collaborate. So sometimes it's complicated, but they get there. And then they understand also why is it important to collaborate? Why it is important to collaborate? Because, oh, I didn't understand that word. Hey, but I know. So they can exchange about vocabulary, but you're right. Sometimes it's difficult, particularly when they don't choose their partner. Yeah, I was going to say sometimes they are not so happy about my choice. But, but, yeah, but if you see that it doesn't work. Yeah, I tell them as a class, if I still see that they bug, I go and I talk to them, telling them that that's the purpose. It's listening and speaking. I want you to listen to your partner. I want you to speak to your partner. So the script writing looked a little bit different. So that's where we check in and make sure that everybody's getting somewhat of the same amount of speaking. And if you're the anchor, what are the questions you're asking based on the research that they collected in my case? Cause it's not based on an article. Absolutely. Script is very, very important. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like introduce, so who are you? What is your program? Introduce your guest. And what are you going to talk about? Question one. Answer one. Question two. Answer two. Yeah, very. And then at the end, thank the guest. And yeah, cause they forget about all that stuff. Yeah, so because it's only internal at the moment, we just discussed it and got like verbal consent. I believe that if we go to the next step of having it be distributed outside of our classroom, really, we would have to have some type of waiver or consent form. No, we are a private school. So really not, yeah, we don't abide by any district rules, but as a school, we do have some regulations. The material may be used outside. So like I said, we are not there yet, but definitely something we've considered and thought about if we are to distribute this outside. Right now it's pretty much the classroom only, not even other classrooms, right? It's just our classroom for now. They listen to podcasts outside cause we've used them so much for the last two years. So now they do go outside and find nice podcasts that they can listen to at home. So it's been nice to see that, but not yet the creation. So we talked about that actually like interview inside the school, like you go with your phone, you prepare your questions and it should be interesting questions like what's your name and where are you from, something a little deeper and walk around the school and ask the other students. Yeah, but not yet. But it maybe next year we'll talk about that. It will come. We kind of told them, we're thinking of now moving to having you create podcasts. And then yeah, obviously Bumps on the Road at the beginning we kind of just let's try it with this one page worksheet and yeah, and then kind of gradually moved. Luckily we are lucky that we have the same group for three months. So we were able to learn with them at the beginning while it was not working and then the last month really worked well. In my case, my group stays for more than three months. So I've been really, they already are familiar and I've been really able to kind of learn with them and they know what I mean when I said the final project for this unit will be podcasts. They already know how it works. What is good somehow is that before that, they know because I am lucky enough to have them in level five and then in level six. Yeah, that's true. So they know podcast. They know Judy, I'm telling you. So when we record and it is so dry and boring, I tell them, come on guys, Judy doesn't do that. Judy, she's involved, she likes, she's passionate. And they know exactly what I'm talking about. So it helps to definitely work with that upstream. So the problem is the length, but I really like the daily. It's amazing and I tell my students to listen to it. But a podcast, above four minutes, it is too long. It is too much vocabulary, it is too complicated. So I think this is why we have sticked with NPR and PBS because of the length. Yeah, VOA, I think some of our lower level pictures have used, but definitely we... I used it, but I really prefer PBS, definitely. It's more challenging. Also, I've started to listen to 60 Minutes and I really love Anderson Cooper. So maybe it's because he's married with a French guy. I don't know. But I really like the way he speaks. So I think I will also try to isolate this part of 60 Minutes. And yesterday, it went to a session here actually where they talked about CNN 10, 10-minute news reports. It's a collection of different units. So maybe that's something to also implement. I don't know, it's a 10-minute video really. But it captures the news from the week or the day. I don't quite remember the day in 10 minutes. Okay, let's move on to the last one. So these are just our contact information for those asking about the slides and handouts. You can follow this tiny CC. Tiny URL. And honestly, if you use that, just let us know about it. Tell us how it went. Yeah, or any suggestions. And obviously, don't forget the evaluation for OTAN, please. Thank you. Yeah, that's it. Thank you very much for coming.