Use of podcasts in effective teaching of vocabulary: Learners' attitudes, motivations and limitations

Abstract

Whether e-learning in the form of podcasting helps learners with their attitudes and motivations toward learning English vocabulary is investigated in this article. It also gives voice to them and investigates whether they address limitations in podcasts' access on the net. In our study, a group of 30 university students who were not very familiar with English vocabularies and were estimated as intermediate level English students received some video podcasts through e-mail. After a week a five-point Likert scale questionnaire also was sent to each or was given to them in paper, asking them some questions about their experience. The data were analyzed using SPSS. The findings suggested that learners had very positive attitude toward podcasts and had very high motivation to continue learning English vocabularies with the help of podcasts. Learners also pointed to difficult access, low internet speed and filtering as the limitations. © 2013 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.