Podcasts in teaching EFL for students majoring in engineering

Abstract

English proficiency is one of the key factors that influences both the academic life of engineering students and their future career. The application of foreign language teaching podcasts with students of technical universities lacks empirical exploration to support their use. The present paper gives a brief review of scholarly literature published from 2007-2018 on effects of podcasts in foreign language learning that showed that there is not sufficient research on the benefits of using professional podcasts in foreign language study of future engineers. A series of 10 professional engineering podcasts covering “Electrical Engineering” topics were used to improve future engineers' English language competence. The pedagogical experiment has been conducted on the basis of the State Agrarian and Engineering University in Podillia, Ukraine. We collected data from 50 first-year students of the Mechanical and Engineering Department, who were learning English as a foreign language. It is concluded in terms of assessing engineering student performance that the qualitative indicators of students' listening and speaking skills after using professional podcasts are fairly good. This study recommends university teachers to integrate profession-based podcasts with students of technical universities to improve student listening and speaking, to provide participants of the education process with new vocabulary, to encourage the interaction with engineering community and independent student learning outside the classroom.