¶ … Audio Recordings for Teaching English as a Second Language
The Use of Audio Recordings for Teaching Language Learners
The trends in the field of ELT have changed in this modern era of languages. While people in the olden times used to learn a language to be able to read the literature of that language, nowadays a language is learned to gain communicative skills. And similarly, with the changes in these trends, educators have also noticed changes in the method of teaching English as a second language. Advancements in technology have aided the use of other modes of teaching rather than just the text book (Peregoy & Boyle, 2013). Among these modes of teaching, audio recordings make up one of the methods. Audio recordings are used to deliver lectures and they also make the lesson more interesting. However, the main question that to address is whether audio recordings are an effective way of teaching English as a second language.
Review of Research:
In 2008, Lord carried out a small study including 16 students that were given Spanish lessons with the help of audio recordings, in the United States. She found that there was significant improvement in her students after the lessons. Their pronunciation had improved a great deal as a result of the audio lessons. A similar study was carried out by Ducate and Lomicka (2009). However, the results weren't as noticeable. Nonetheless, the students had positive reactions...
Abdous, Camarena and Facer (2009) conducted a survey through eight different language classes. They concluded that the use of podcasts had a very positive effect on the students' skills. Audio recordings had proved to be a very helpful tool and had improved the speaking, listening and reading skills of the students. Another research by Abdous, Facer and Yen in 2012 reported, after conducting a study in 27 language classes over three years, that, they have found out that the way audio learning is integrated in the curriculum has a very notable effect on the grades of the students.
On the contrary, there have been some researchers who have found contradictory results. They believe that there are several limitations of this method of language-learning; although it gives audio lessons, there is lack of another element that's vital in learning a language and that is interaction (Rosell-Aguilar, 2013). However, it was determined that these audio lessons come with other resources through which interaction can be encouraged, e.g. transcripts and print exercises. In more advanced learning capacities, educators can find quizzes and forums, or applications in devices such as smart phones, tablets etc. Moreover, when audio learning is induced in classrooms and not individually, interaction can be encouraged in the form of reporting, summarising, discussing, comparing and contrasting, collectively.
Reflection…
