Podcasts’ efects on the EFL classroom: a socially relevant intervention

Abstract

ICT tools have gained particular importance in the English as a foreign language classroom in order to promote students’ interaction, exchange of opinions, negotiation of meaning, or digital competence. Technological development and the impact of multimedia and virtual spaces on students’ lives make educational institutions and teachers explore new tools and strategies to learn the target language. Podcasts present content available on the Internet and can become an infuential teaching strategy that may improve the teaching–learning process of EFL. This study aims to investigate the efect of audio podcasts, which deal with social inequality issues, on secondary education students’ EFL linguistic competence. A sample of seventy-eight students was randomly distributed into a control and an experimental group during a term in a high school in Madrid (Spain). As instruments for data collection, the grades obtained in the diferent skills in the pre and post-tests and the diferent task performance scores were analysed in both groups. The methodological framework is defned as a quasiexperimental design that provides quantitative data. The results confrm the hypothesis that the creation and use of podcasts are benefcial for improving EFL linguistic competence, especially speaking and listening skills. Practical implications aimed at organising English classes to improve EFL profciency are discussed.