Interview podcasts: effects of a competence-based didactic sequence on students’ oral and written production

Abstract

The usefulness of didactic proposals focused on a textual genre –such as the didactic sequences from Geneva School– has already been demonstrated in different studies (Mielgo et al., 2012; Santolària, 2018). However, there is hardly any research that observes the effects of proposals focused on current genres such as the interview podcast. This pre-experimental study aims to explore the effects of a competency-based didactic sequence focused on the production of interview podcasts on the oral and written skills of 22 students in the first year of Compulsory Secondary Education (12-13 years old). The work, carried out over two weeks in the Spanish Language subject, consisted of a pretest, in which each student wrote a script and recorded two interviews –one as the interviewer and another as the interviewee–, a didactic intervention and a post-test. After the evaluation of the 44 scripts and the 88 recordings from the pretest and the posttest using two analytical rubrics, the data were statistically analyzed. The results reveal significant improvements after the intervention in the textual structure as well as in the fluency, intonation and attitude of the students in their role as interviewers. These findings confirm the relevance of working on the podcast genre through competency-based didactic sequences at this educational level.