Review of ELT podcasts

2014 was a great year for EFL podcasts with several sprouting up like veritable fungi. I'm a huge fan of podcasts and think they can be a great way of learning while doing other stuff. So what TEFL podcasts are there and more importantly are they any good? 


1. TEFLology 

TEFLology is 45 mins, fortnightly podcast. The three guys who host it are, I think, lecturers in Japanese universities, which perhaps gives the podcast more of a slant towards applied linguistics, over TEFL topics. The very early episodes were quite unpolished, and there are still moment where the conversation just seems to fade out into  'yeah...mmm....right' kind of moments but they seem to be getting better at editing these out. The Podcasts is usually divided into a 'TEFL pioneers' section, TEFL news and a more general discussion of some ELT topic like DuoLingo, linguistic imperialism or TPR. Overall The podcast is well-researched and well worth a listen. In fact the level of research they seem to put into the episodes does make me fear they will burn themselves out. The podcast has recently had an impressive list of guests such as Nina spada, Widdowson and even an 'explicit' interview with Rod Ellis. It's also worth listening to for the 'home-made' jingle at the start. 

2. The Minimal Pair Podcast

This podcast is almost the complete opposite to TEFLology. It's ESL focused rather than EFL and is hosted by two Americans,  Jean Dempsey and Stephanie Axe who I think are adjunct professors (?) at a US university. They have had a number of interesting episodes on things like 'What's the last P in parsnip' and  recap of goings on at the TESOL conference. I find this podcast interesting because I feel I get very little exposure to US TEFL culture and ideas. Obviously ELT is big over there too and I know their system is somewhat different to the UK, but I'm not entirely sure how. That said, in a number of episodes they have talked at length about catering for student learning styles and then were quite positive about prescriptive grammar, -my two pet hates.  Consequently I wrote a rather negative review of them. Since that there hasn't been another episode. I hope the two events are not related. They have reassured me they will be back in the New Year, so here's hoping. 

3. KKCL podcast 

I thought kKCL was a pretty good podcast, with fairly high production values and a nice style. Their fifth episode was on the topic of learning styles. Guest Marjorie Rosenberg, discussed her new book with host Phil Keegan. I thought this particular episode was a good illustration of the problems with learning styles and so I wrote about it here. Unfortunately the podcast seems to have stopped after this. I hope the two events were not related. The curse of EBEFL? I hope not. Will 2015 see a reappearance of KKCL? Only time will tell.  

4. Masters of TESOL 

This podcast is the brand spanking new kid on the block. With only 3 episodes so far it may not seem worth reviewing but host Andrew Bailey has already managed to bag interviews with Scott thornbury and Ahmar Mahboob.And if that weren't enough he also got a guest anecdote from none other than the Master of TESOL himself, Mike Griffin.I f you've heard the 'freakanomics' podcast, you may feel this has a similar vibe.  This podcast is new so it's hard to say how it'll turn out but it's compact and slick and I've got this on my 'one to watch' list. It certainly has a lot of potential. 

5. ELTchat  

Last but not least is ELTchat, the companion to the twitter #ELTchat. I have to include this because James Taylor would kill me if I left it out. This is a great podcast which includes well known, tweeters and bloggers like Vicky Loras, Tony Gurr and Marisa Constantinides. However so far it has only had about 12 episodes over four years and has only had one episodes in the last year (2014) which makes me wonder if perhaps it isn't in need of a bit of love and attention? James? 

Hopes for 2015

I hope some of the podcasts mentioned here are produced a bit more regularly. It'd also be great to see a podcast offering actual advice for teachers about jobs, something like "guide to teaching in..." and each week the country would be different. It'd also be nice if podcasts included more NNS as hosts and if we saw more women hosts as well.

Did I get anything wrong here? Anything I need to add? Did I miss out any podcasts you think are great? Let me know in the comments. 

Part 2 here. 

KKCL ELT podcast or why LS is so popular

Trying to explain something is never as effective as seeing the actual thing you're trying to explain. With that in mind I recommend everyone rush over and listen to  KKCL's new TEFL podcast in particular their latest episode in which they decided to tackle, -yes you guessed it, -learning styles. I recommend it not for the high production quality, friendly style and soothing tone of host Phil Keegan, but rather as a fantastic insight into why learning styles are so popular.

Me me me!

One reason for its popularity  is that it's about our favourite topic,  namely us. Everyone likes to think they are unique and special, when the truth is, we share a lot of characteristics. However, subjective validation means it's possible to see something personally meaningful and accurate in statements which are neither. Nowhere is this clearer than in episode 5 of KKCL's podcast.

Guest Marjorie Rosenberg starts off with an anecdote about her learning experiences and how teachers in high school French class destroyed her motivation by not letting her visualise vocab. she then talks about how learning German was aided by carrying a dictionary around and looking at the words.

Next host Phil jumps in to let us know he's a auditory learner and is very excited to learn it's the minority 'style'. He then tell us about how his students used to complain because he didn't write vocab on the board, as he was an auditory learner and so didn't need to see the words.

When Marjorie tells us about a further four styles of learner (in total she lists 2x4x4 possible types), and describes one of them as being someone who hates reading instruction manuals, to which Phil excitedly notes "that's like me!"

Later the hosts of the podcast talk about what kind of learner they are and one recounts his experience learning Japanese with a book which showed the characters being related to pictures.

Finally although not strictly in the podcast, commentator Anna perfectly exemplifies how learning styles can have an attractive personal significance. After thanking Phil and his crew for the podcast she notes "I’m personally visual, analytic and definitely paying lots of attention to emotions and raport in the classroom". 

Confirmation

Subjective validation goes hand in hand with confirmation bias which leads us to look for evidence that backs up our beliefs and dismiss evidence which contradicts them. Every single human being instinctively does this and it's why the scientific method, which seeks to falsify things, is so valuable. In the examples above we can see Phil and Marjorie finding confirmation of their beliefs in learning styles, but then they're not looking to disprove them.

One example of confirmation bias is that Phil believes not writing words on the board is evidence he's not a visual learner, but many teachers don't write words up on the board either and this has nothing to do with learning styles -it might just be inexperience or plain laziness. He also thinks not reading instruction manuals makes him a certain type of learner but could it not just be that manuals are dull? After all, research suggests no one reads them.

Phil also manages to find confimation of learning styles in his messy office. He's not visual so he doesn't see the mess. Oddly he later claims he's a bit kinaesthetic as walking around "helps [him] to think".

Similarly Marjorie ascribe her failure to learn French to the teacher not allowing her to visualise words, and similarly her success in learning German to carrying a dictionary around and being able to look at the words. Now call me a dirty old cynic but is living and working in a foreign country really comparable to taking a language class in high school? If I were looking at the possible factors that made a difference, "the right learning style" would be pretty low on my list.

Another example of confirmation bias at work is demonstrated by the commentator Anna. The total lack of evidence supporting learning styles is characterised by her as "supposedly limited scientific evidence of their efficacy". She found the podcast very enjoyable presumably because it reinforced her opinion. If you believe in learning styles, then you can find anecdotal evidence for them everywhere.

Excuses excuses 

Finally Learning styles can be a great way to excuse failure. As with the example above, it wasn't the fact that hardly anyone masters a language in high school that caused the problem but not being allowed to learn in the right way. It would be nice if there was a secret method that could 'unlock' learning and make our students better at languages, but sadly life doesn't work like that.

If someone wants to believe in something they will believe in it, damn the evidence. This was brought home to me again this week by the story of a woman who (it seems) sincerely believes she can live off sunlight. As long as there is Breatharianism the battle against learning styles will be a tough one.

It's clear from the get go that the host Phil and guest Marjorie are friends, so perhaps it's not surprising that there are no tough questions, (like how kinaethetic and audio style teachers are supposed to deal with Marjorie's book which is clearly visual-centric with its words and pictures and stuff, tsk tsk!) . The only time any criticism are broached at all is when Marjorie defends learning styles against the claim that they pigeon-hole students. It's really interesting to me that proponents of learning styles seem so worried by this claim, but not at all worried by their being no research support for LS theory.  

The EFL world needs a good podcast so I hope Phil and his crew will deal a bit more critically with topics like this in the future. If you would like to listen a podcast which makes a good job of dealing with learning styles, then try this one.