Abstract

In Hampel and Hauck (2004) the basic second language learning theory is summarized as follows: For language acquisition to take place, students must be provided with comprehensible input (Krashen, 1981, 1985), they have to be able to interact to negotiate leaning (Gass & Varonis, 1994; Varonis & Gass, 1985), and they must produce comprehensible output (Swain, 1985). In accordance with this basic theory, most language instruction starts with a good amount of comprehensible input and with the advent of Communicative Language Teaching and other communicative types of teaching methodologies, students are forced to interact with either other learners or the teacher to negotiate meaning. However, while trying to find grounds for learners to communicate and produce comprehensible output, the lack of native speakers has always been seen as something which reduces the effectiveness of communication in that it was not authentic. For years, many institutions have hired native speakers – not necessarily ELT teachers – and made them responsible for speaking classes as the easiest way to solve this problem. The success of this approach can be discussed; however, the dependence upon such outer resources is losing its power in today’s world as new technologies enable us to communicate internationally without any charge and with good audio and even video quality. In this paper, one of these technologies, podcasting, is going to be touched upon and a web-site which enables even the most novice users to use this kind of high-tech technology is reviewed.

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