The Role of Podcasts in Enhancing EFL University Students’ Listening Comprehension Skills: A Case Study of Third Year Students at the Department of Foreign Languages. Mila.

Abstract

The main goal of this investigation is to examine the effectiveness of using podcasts to enhance listening comprehension abilities of foreign language learners in the Algerian context. An experiment was conducted with English third-year students at Abdelhafid Boussouf University to see if there is a positive change in the students’ listening comprehension abilities after they listen regularly to audio podcasts. The experiment is supported by two questionnaires: the first was addressed to the students to make sure that the listening content of the treatment was selected according to their interest, while the second was meant to measure their beliefs and attitudes about taking part in the experiment. An interview was conducted with the teachers of the listening module to take into consideration their points of view concerning the problems that face them during the listening comprehension sessions and the adequacy of using podcasts to help improve students’ listening comprehension abilities. The results that we obtained from the three research tools do confirm the hypothses “Listening to podcasts will result in a significant difference between the mean scores of listening comprehension performance of the two groups”. Indeed, the period in which the experiemtal student participants received the instruction has resulted in higher mean scores in comparison to the control group. In addition, the students who took part in the experiment reported that they approve of this experience and believe that it may well help them develop their listening comprehension abilities. Likewise, the t eachers of listening comprehension all agreed on the suitability of using podcasts to help EFL Algerian students improve their listening comprehension skills.