Video Podcast for EFL Students

1. Description of Intended Students.

They are 39 EFL 8th graders students from Chile; therefore, Spanish is their only native language. Most of them come from low or middle social class families. They attend to a public school in the 5th region of their country.
About their interests they like listening to music, dancing, going parties, hanging out with friends, sports, and only a few like English because of music or movies. In fact, they need to know that English is a very functional language, since it is spoken all around the world.

2. Description of language objectives and content objectives.

 Language objectives for the series.

Students will be able to persuade their classmates.
Students will be able to orally defend their position.
Students will be able to recognize instructional sentences.
Students will be able to discuss about American dishes and desserts.
Students will be able to orally and written express interests and preferences.

 Content objectives for the series.

Students will identify verbs related to cooking.
Students will be able to distinguish American dishes and desserts.
Students will be able to create oral and written personal opinions.

 Language objectives for the individual podcast.

Students will be able to write a paragraph about their opinion.
Students will be able to comprehend content vocabulary words about the recipe.
Students will be able to orally ask and answer questions.
Students will be able to read instructions.

 Content objectives for the individual podcast

Students will be able to identify objects that are used to cook.
Student will be able to describe the recipe’s instructions.
Students will be able to written create their own recipe.
Students will be able to orally debate about the recipe.

Explanation of reasoning

I create these video about Macaroni and Cheese recipe because it is an American Dish, so cultural aspect is included that is a very interesting way to follow or learn how to read instructions, due to verbs are in infinitive and it is easier to understand; besides students know a little bit of English and it is necessary to read just a few words or short sentences supported with pictures.

Furthermore, the ingredients are things that they have always seen at their own houses, so I connect their reality to the English learning.

3. Description of the elements that make the podcast comprehensible.
The elements that make the podcast comprehensible are: the short sentences because they are very easy to read and understand, sometimes it is only a verb or a word, so students will feel comfortable knowing that they can actually understand, even in context.
Finally, the video has a very structured sequence, which make it easy to follow, and the images of the objects or actions work as a dictionary, so they can really understand the whole video meaning.

4. Descriptions of the strategies that we have covered that have informed the choices that you have made with the podcast and how you will use it with students.

Teaching language through content: students can identify some grammatical structures, learn vocabulary, follow sequences; through the Video podcast.

Lessons should support student’s first culture: Even though the recipe is not Chilean the objects that are shown in the video can be found in any student’s house; so the elements used on the video are from real life.

Group work: After the video podcast presentation students have to orally debate, discuss, and give opinions about what they think.