PODCASTS AS A MEANS OF DEVELOPING ENGLISH LISTENING AND SPEAKING SKILLS FOR STUDENTS OF TECHNICAL UNIVERSITIES
PODCASTS AS A MEANS OF DEVELOPING ENGLISH LISTENING AND SPEAKING SKILLS FOR STUDENTS OF TECHNICAL UNIVERSITIES

Summary/Abstract: In 2020, the world was swept by the COVID-19 pandemic, which made significant changes to all areas of human activity, including the educational process. In many countries, including Russia, universities were transferred to distance learning, so teachers had to change the work format. The closing of educational institutions and their urgent transition to online training are fraught with obvious problems that pose a challenge to the entire education system. However, along with challenges and problems, the new learning format provides a wide range of opportunities and prospects for changing and improving education systems. Since it became impossible to give studies in classrooms, university teachers had to use original methods and principles to organize the learning process. One of the didactic principles in teaching is the principle of visibility and, in terms of the implementation of this principle, the Internet has extensive opportunities for teachers of foreign languages. Increasingly, the term “Web 2.0 technologies” appears in scientific and pedagogical literature. It is a complete rethink of building the learning process. There are many Web 2.0 platforms such as blogs, social bookmarking service, podcast, LearningApps, Mindmeister, Quizlet, etc. The purpose of the study is to consider the possibility of using such Web 2.0 technology as a podcast to develop listening and speaking skills in English. The urgency of this problem is due to the increased focus on the integration of computer technologies into pedagogical practice. The article provides “podcast” definition, describes classification, the linguodidactic potential, and the main characteristics of podcast as a method of foreign language teaching. The novelty of the work lies in the description of the experience in using podcasts in teaching English listening and speaking to students of Nosov Magnitogorsk State Technical University. The authors come to the conclusion that the informativeness of visual and oral series, the image dynamism, wide didactic possibilities, accessibility at a convenient for the user time, as well as ease of use, make podcasting promising in the practice of teaching foreign languages. Analysis, synthesis, and generalization methods are used in the research.

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