Podcasts and Disciplinary Literacy
Last year, I was earie-wigging on my four-year olds engaged in some imaginative play, when I was stopped in my tracks. “Let’s take the boat out to the archipelago!”
Wait, what? The…archipelago?
Where had this word come from? How did they know it? Had I ever read a book to them that featured an archipelago? When I rudely delayed the imaginative sortie to find answers, they replied dismissively that they had just heard it in a podcast that they had been listening to in bed a few nights prior. This got me thinking about when I first heard/used/wrote that word. Not until my late teens at uni. If only I’d had podcasts when I was wee, think of the vocab I could be wielding by now.
Let’s take this concept further. What could a quick burst of listening do for learners every day in our classrooms?
Listening to the first three minutes of a podcast episode called ‘How does the body cope with extreme heat?’, from the Science Weekly team at The Guardian, has interesting results. Try it. Listen and think about the vocabulary and knowledge present in those three minutes.
As listeners, we are exposed to:
· Subject-specific terminology
· Disciplinary knowledge related to Physical Education, Geography and Environmental Science
· Some important ideas related to real global issues
Imagine what three minutes of listening, embedded regularly into our practice, could do for closing literacy gaps.
Education Scotland’s Experiences and Outcomes document for Literacy and English in the BGE tasks cross-sectoral practitioners with developing pupils’ proficiencies in Talking and Listening. There are various innovative ways we could improve the communication skills of our young people. Debating immediately springs to mind here as a literacy tool that maps on to Talking and Listening E’s and O’s, as well as Reading and Writing ones too.
Podcasting does this and more.
A podcast is an audio file that can be easily downloaded. Podcasts are the most versatile of art forms: we can listen to them on laptops, computers, tvs, mobiles and tablets. They are accessible without limitation on time and place.
In terms of pedagogy, podcasts provide opportunities for teachers to expand the boundaries of the traditional four-walled classroom. With a podcast library, we are walking around with a bank of pedagogues, ready to tell us about any subject we want to know about. Pupils can listen on their mobiles in school; as a class; as a group; at home; walking to school.
Podcasts, then, offer increased opportunities to enhance teaching and learning, and support the shift form teacher-centred to learner-centred which is in keeping with the philosophy of CfE.
But what does research tell us about podcasting and its effects on literacy? There is an emerging body of research on how podcasts help with second language acquisition in Modern Foreign Languages and how vocabulary is enhanced through this digital medium.
Following the first period of lockdown in 2020, the National Literacy Trust conducted a survey into children’s use of podcasts. If you are interested, the full report can be accessed on the NLT website. A summary of the findings are listed below:
· More children and young people who listen to podcasts enjoy reading than their peers who do not listen to podcasts
· More children and young people who listen to podcasts read daily than their peers who do not listen to podcasts
· 1 in 5 children and young people say they listen to podcasts
· Nearly 1 in 4 children and young people listened to podcasts or audiobooks more during lockdown than they did before.
However, the picture is not so positive when we consider things like the gender divide or equity: 22.7% of boys engaged compared with 16.6% of girls who said they listened to podcasts or audiobooks. Children in receipt of free school meals are ‘less likely to listen’.
What could the barriers to listening be?
· Digital access (device/wifi/headphones)
· Opportunities (shared spaces, demands on time)
· Knowing what to listen to (too much choice, unsure how to whittle down)
· Barriers to literacy (reading synopses, listening for long enough to know they’re interested etc.)
What do we need to do to improve talking and listening in the BGE? How do we move away from episodic or hard to quantify encounters to something more strategic and, ultimately, embedded? We also, it must be remembered, are having to consider the implications of the OECD recommendations for Senior Phase. We understand that any new development in Senior Phase must bring curricular aspiration into alignment with assessment practice. This, surely, would mean more collaborative learning, communication-heavy project working and presentations. Podcasts – whether that be listening to, making, or analysing critically – offer opportunities to nurture the meta-cognitive skills required in such tasks.
Recommendations
For every podcast suggested, I promise that you will find ten that are much better for your specific context. This is a quick peek of what’s out there, something to get the ideas – and rich discussions – flowing.
Stories
To deliver a block of learning on a particular genre, it usually takes me (as an English specialist) a good few lessons, (maybe because I tend to labour the point until I’ve squeezed all joy out of a text). When I take this long, it means that I can only cover a couple of prose fiction genres with pupils over the course of the year. But what if I used a podcast like The Stories podcast to give pupils a whistle-stop tour of the genre landscape? What if I could teach genre hacks quickly? Stories is marketed as a bedtime show for kids of all ages, with a new story (an oldie or an original tale) told each week. Episodes last on average 18-20 minutes. On a fast flick through the first ten or so episodes of this series, I found at least eight distinct genres covered in the ten tales presented These stories are not all “well-kent”, but use conventions of the genre (ie. fairytales) to parody, mimic, subvert them.
In one episode, named ‘Persephone’s Winter’ we find all the trappings of Greek mythology, boiled down to its essence. We have the mythological figure, the moral tale, and the interpretation of the moralitas at the end to reaffirm the didactic nature of myths.
A great activity would be to ask pupils to listen to an episode and to define the features particular to the genre. They could create genre cards that they might use as a tool for writing when they come to write and record their own “stories” podcast.
Story Seeds
I love the premise of this series, and think it has real potential to captivate listeners, kick-start post-listening conversations AND offer opportunities for peer writing activities. In Story Seeds, an established author works with a young writer to grow their “story seed”. Episode one – ‘The Magic Seed’ – is a good place to start. The series’ Interesting concept shows pupils how to plan for writing (ie. develop an idea fully, discuss modifications etc.) I wondered if instead of reciprocal reading, we might try reciprocal writing modelled on Story seeds? Talking skills would be developed through discussion, collaboration and compromise during the writing process. Justification of editorial decisions (‘ie. Why have they chosen a word or phrase?) would also be a necessary part of the dialogue.
Story Quest
Ideal for all ages. Episodes last nine minutes, so perfect material for an afternoon settler, a Monday morning starter, or a 10-minute literacy burst mid-way through the day. Story Quest is a mixture of stand-alone stories and serialisations of longer books (such as Cressida Cowell’s Wizard of Once). These are silly, nonsensical, fantastical – listening together as a class, waiting for the next instalment – is a great way to foster a class ethos/relationship build.
Disciplinary Literacy
So far, I have offered some fiction podcasts. But non-fiction is really where the podcast industry excels. Here are a few suggestions of brilliant non-fiction podcasts for young learners (as true crime isn’t really many a 10-year old’s bag).
BBC Sounds
Since its inception in 2018, BBC Sounds has gone from strength to strength in the podcast market. One beauty of a podcast is 20 Animals that Made us Smarter, a STEM podcast focused on technological innovation and engineering. As the title indicates, each episode selects one creature whose body/movements/characteristics have been used by scientists in the development of machines/medicines/procedures. I have learned so much from this. It is a demanding podcast, but my four-year olds can listen to it, understand it, and talk about it. This would make for an excellent launchpad into a wider STEM project at Primary or indeed for Secondary colleagues.
Operation Ouch is a long-running tv series on CBBC. This podcast spin-off mimics the format of the TV show, to give young people an irreverent take on medicine and human biology. Juvenile humour is married with scientific fact – it does for medicine what the Horrible Histories series did for history. Nothing bodily function-wise is off-limits, and I challenge you all not to fall in love with Dr Chris and want to throw a shoe at his annoying twin, Dr Xand.
But Why? And Wow! In the World!
Sometimes, I want to discuss weighty morally and ethically stimulating issues with my learners, but find the types of podcasts that I listen to totally inaccessible for BGE. Two critically well-received philosophy podcasts for kids are But Why? A Podcast for Curious Kids and Wow! In the World! These podcasts can be used in the classroom to foster curiosity, encourage pupils enquiry, and to develop critical thinking skills. I could see them working within a block of learning as part of RME.
Where Next?
In terms of their popularity, podcasts and podcasting have witnessed an exponential increase in their popularity in the last five years. As a frequent and voracious podcast user, I have listened my way through years-worth of content on the musical genius of rap and hip hop; the legal intricacies of the American constitution; long-form documentaries on science or theatre or film; gripping true crime series; political and ethical debates; immersive interviews; comedies; tragedies; internet deep dives…And I (someone who professes to be relatively well-read) have learned an inordinate amount in the process. Subjects that I would never ordinarily sit down and read about, someone has researched, crystallised, edited down and packaged attractively and accessibly for the generally interested listener.
Imagine what impact these podcasts could have on improving literacy outcomes, on expanding general knowledge, and developing disciplinary literacy – if we only gave pupils the tools to unlock them.