Abstract:

A growing number of professors worldwide are recording their lectures as podcasts (usually audio and video) for students to see their teachers in action - the term coursecasting has been adopted in academia. Academics are known for their philanthropy and desire to share their knowledge. Technology and podcasting as a communication medium have made it easier for these teachers to collaborate, share and provide material in a portable format. Podcasting allows academics to extend their reach outside the classroom. This contribution will look at the particular case of the Faculty of Engineering of the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) in Brussels, within the context of Joint Master’s programmes taught partially or fully in the English language. What can podcasting bring to an educational field whose medium of instruction is now English (a foreign language in Belgium)? The challenges students face in such educational contexts is mostly language-targeted, where students report difficulties with note-taking, the introduction of key terms and terminology, and more importantly, the teachers’ accent and rate of speech. Podcasting can bring a solution to this problem by enabling students to revisit the lecture outside the classroom, to focus on individual problem areas and foster student learning and autonomy. Certain subject material lends itself to podcasting more than others: for example, science labs and experiments. The portability of the videocasts makes it easier for students to review labs, when critically analyzing their data. Foreign language lessons are also ideal for podcasts because students can listen to different accents, intonations, and speech patterns (native and non-native). Students listening to podcasts in a foreign language are able to hear and experience the language outside of the classroom thereby improving their overall language skills. By combining the advantages of using podcasts in the scientific field on the one hand to those of foreign language teaching, podcasts can be a beneficial tool for those who have embarked on Content and Language Integrated in Higher Education (CLIHE).

Keywords:

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Higher Education (HE), Second Language Acquisition, Podcasts.