The Impact of Podcasts on Students’ Listening Skills

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate, what kind of impact podcasts had on language learning, what aspects of language students improved using podcasts and whether podcasts helpedtheArmenian EFL learners to facilitate language learning process or not. To find out the answers of these questions quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection were used.For conducting this research two groups were selected in Experimental English Courses(EEC) at American University of Armenia. The level of the two groups was the same, pre-intermediate and the classes were administered with the same books.Both groups took pre-test in the beginning of the course. One of the groups was the experimental group, (Com. 6a) and the other one was the control group (Com. 6c). The experimental group was assigned to listen to podcasts outside of classroom and the podcast episodes were sent to the students’ emails. The control group had listening activities only from the course book. The aim of this study was to find out how the students in the experimental group performed in the post-test compared with the students in the control group. The results revealed that the group who had podcast assisted language learning courses performed better in the post-test than the group who did not use extra listening materials outside of classroom. Besides when interviewed, the students from the experimental group mentioned that they liked the process of listening to podcasts as due to it they started to better understand native speech, improved their pronunciation and enriched their vocabulary.