World Language Podcast

• WL STANDARD 7.1:  All students will be able to use a world language in addition to English to engage in meaningful conversation, to understand and interpret spoken and written language, and to present information, concepts, and ideas.
• ISTE Student Standard Creative Communicator – Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.

• create their own world language podcasts to reinforce current learning. 

1. Have your students, individually or in groups, create podcasts teaching basic Spanish, French, etc. Appropriate topics include nouns or verbs centered on a specific topic and how to conjugate specific verb endings. Then put those podcasts to use teaching your beginning students.
2. Assign a lesson topic you’ve already covered—the subjunctive mood or conditional mood, for example—to each student or group of students. Have them prepare their own review of this lesson in podcast form and then share it with the rest of the class.
3. Divide your class into groups of three or four students and have each group create their own podcast linked to current events either in your own country or in a Spanish/French/etc.-speaking country. Make assignments by country (Venezuela, Mexico, Spain, Guatemala, and so on), topics (popular music, wars, taxes, education, and so on) or leave the choice of topics up to your students—with your prior approval, of course.

A podcast can be adapted for any and all classroom content and ages. For example, in a history class, the task could be to create a podcast to a student’s hero from the Civil War. In a science class, have students address their podcasts to their favorite scientist. This lesson could apply in any course, but it is most closely aligned with Language Arts, Information & Communications Technology, and Visual & Performing Arts.