Working Context

The learners are final year undergraduate students reading either the BA in Translation Studies or Joint Honours: Spanish/French, Spanish/German, Spanish/Italian, as well as Exchange students from Spain, France and Italy studying in the UK for a year.
The subject area is MLS310 (Translation Workshop). Semester I: Spanish into English / Semester II: English into Spanish
The lesson is taught in a Language Laboratory that provides access to the Internet and thus, Blackboard and other software such as ‘Audacity’

A large number of students (23), four different native languages, and the desirability of giving them the opportunity of exploring other output different from a written one, was the reason why I tried Podcasting
This was done as a pilot activity for future implementation (if successful).

Learning Activity/Approach

Podcasting seemed an ideal E-learning tool where students could produce a Target Text that was audio rather than written. Thus, I decided to create a Podcast Episode on Blackboard

The Source Text was a list of short book reviews in English taken from The Big Issue – Cymru Magazine, which provided some linguistic challenges (lexis and register, in particular)

I set the students the task of producing a mini-radio Podcast: they had to translate all the reviews (4 or 5 depending on the number of people in each group) and deliver them verbally in the fashion of a typical radio programme in Spanish

The Glossary, Analysis & Strategy were done in the previous Workshop and students were allocated a book review each, which they had to translate and bring to the last Workshop of the year

Each Workshop was two-hours long

In our last Workshop, students were taught how to use Audacity, which had been installed previously by the Systems Administrator in Language Laboratory C, where the Translation Workshops took place every week

The technician was at hand during the first 20 minutes of the lesson to provide technical support in relation to ‘Audacity’, which he did. When it was all working fine, students set out to create their Radio Podcasts with great enthusiasm (one per group)

Evaluation of Outcome

Students read, analysed and translated a book review and produced an audio output through the medium of a Radio Podcast
The oral production was, on the whole, successful

Some students got carried away by the technology and did not fully meet the linguistic objective

Learning how to use Podcasting is a transferable skill and a tool that they can apply to various audio/video and written language tasks both to practise their language skills and to be assessed through it

Outcome

Podcasting as a tool, worked perfectly OK. However, one group had difficulty handling the technology and recorded several book reviews on the same track (rather than on different tracks, as they were supposed to have done). Never-theless, taking into consideration that it was the first time that they had used it, most students did remarkably well

Pre-requisites: The tutor has to attend a training session (I had attended a day-conference on ‘Podcasting and its application to Modern Languages’ before trying out the exercise with my students myself); IT support has to be available at the beginning of the session, in case anything goes wrong with the software itself (which it did, but was quickly solved by the technician within the first 20 minutes of the session)

Throughout the Workshop, I was discussing language and IT solutions to prob-lems with all groups. After they had submitted their Radio Podcasts, we all listened to them and commented.

To round up the task, after the session was over, I gave each group Feedback on their Radio Podcast, which I posted on Blackboard, and can be downloaded together with each Radio Podcast; I then e-mailed all students and asked them to access the feedback.

Other information

I would like to recommend the use of oral production through the medium of Podcasting as a future activity to be incorporated into the Translation Workshops Modules across all languages
I would also like to use it as a way of assessing students

Strengths: Allows students to use their oral skills; provides variety and encour-ages creativity; it lends itself to both teacher-led and student-led activities, including assessments

Weaknesses: Students can get carried away by the technology itself and ‘forget’ the linguistic objective. Thus, they need careful monitoring, which is not too difficult.

I would definitely use Podcasting again: it is a multimedia medium, which brings together video, audio and text. It is