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PLE Podcast Reviews

Podcast #1 - 5-Minute Spanish by David Nance

https://itunes.apple.com/us/itunes-u/5-minute-spanish/id487338699?mt=10
- I found this podcast relatively engaging.  His use of the whiteboard to provide visual cues to go along with his oral explanation and pronunciations was useful and helpful.  I found his explanations easy to understand, even as one who has little experience (that I remember at this point) with the language.  The only real negative is that the first "episode" sort of jumps right into the topic without preamble, which makes it a bit tricky to catch on with what the focus is right away.


Podcast #2 - ESL POD

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/english-as-second-language-esl-podcast-learn-english/id75908431?mt=2

This podcast is put out by eslpod.com and has hundreds of lessons available for free.  I found the content to be well organized and easily accessible.  The speaker was engaging and his pacing was appropriate for the audience.  I particularly enjoyed the "cultural cafe" lessons, which introduced the listener to an important public figure or place and provided the background information and historical facts necessary to understand its significance.  I would highly recommend this podcast series to people seriously interested in learning American English as a second language.

Podcast #3 - Learn English - English Lessons from ILAC

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/learn-english-english-lessons-from-ilac/id893583547?mt=2

This podcast was by far and away the most entertaining, engaging and obviously professionally produced podcast of those I sampled.  The podcast episode I listened to made use of modern music and pop culture references to teach slang words. The speaker has the classic "announcer voice," which I suppose added a level of "coolness" to the whole thing.  All of that said, I'm not sure this podcast would be appropriate for use in the public edu setting except for perhaps at the high school level.  It's simply not sanitized enough for younger students.  However, it would most certainly be an excellent supplement to more formal learning for any ESL student old enough to appreciate and handle to format and pop references.

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