Yasmeen Coaxum
Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus
Yasmeen has taught ELLs for 12 years at universities, corporations, and language schools in Tokyo, Japan; Ankara, Turkey; Berlin, Germany and Barcelona, Spain. She specializes in English for Academic Purposes and Business English, and has taught at Fordham University, Westchester Community College, Lehman College, and is currently Adjunct Faculty at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York. She holds an MA in Applied Linguistics and Language Acquisition from the University of Barcelona. The focus of her research was on differences in autonomous online vs. face-to-face learning. She is most passionate about exploring how technological resources can enhance students’ enthusiasm and create positive results in their language learning journeys.
Sessions
Listen & Produce: Using Podcasts for Conversation
This presentation will share the effects of a teaching method focusing on podcasts as the prominent teaching tool. It will explore how listening to ESL podcasts, creating conversations using their phrases, and then producing their own podcasts can enhance students’ vocabulary retention, confidence in speaking, and use of new phrases. First, studies on previous applications of podcasting in language acquisition and the effects of such uses on the development of students’ skills are explored. The presenter will then detail the way podcasts are used in each lesson to maximize retention of the vocabulary phrases and their use by providing a sample of the flow of each lesson. There will be a demonstration of how to use the mobile podcasting app Anchor.fm to allow collaboration during remote teaching. In addition, participants will hear a sample of an episode from the student-produced weekly podcast, which is based on conversation topics presented through a teacher-selected ESL podcast episode from ESLPOD.com. In each student-produced episode, students summarize the contents of that week’s podcast and then personalize the material by sharing their opinions or experiences pertaining to the situations presented in each episode. Subsequently, the affective measure of confidence and the increased use of new vocabulary phrases are investigated by analyzing student podcast content and sharing questionnaire results. Participants are members of an advanced conversation & listening class as part of a 14-week academic Continuing Education IEP (Intensive English Program) at a university in the United States.