Podcasts and oral skills: a case study of 3rd year students at the faculty of education, Mahamakut Buddhist University Isan campus, Khon Kaen province

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationships between podcasts and oral skills among Thai university students majoring in English. The participants consisted of five-third-year students studying at Mahamakut Buddhist University Isan campus, Khon Kaen province. These students volunteered to listen to podcasts (in the form of TED Talks) over a course of the second semester of the academic year 2016 and logged the amount of time they listened to the talks during that time. To assess their oral proficiency, the students were interviewed twice before and after they listened to podcasts. The interviews were recorded and judged by three university – level English language instructors. The participants were also observed for their language use in class throughout the semester. The findings show that all but one participant received higher oral proficiency ratings in their second interviews. Words and phrases from podcasts were found in students’ language, particularly in the second interview. The relationship was such that the students imported materials in the podcasts into their conversation on the topic of their interest. It was also found that the participants were more fluent in the second interviews despite a degree of pronunciation error. This was evidence that podcast elements (in the form of references and quotes) existed in the discourse of learners, which in turn added more substance to learners who may otherwise struggle to communicate given their limited grammatical knowledge.