What Are More Effective in English Classrooms: Textbooks or Podcasts?

In the 21st century it has become clear that more and more language-learning pedagogical materials have begun to shift to a digital mobile-access format and away from being a textbook and classroom based one. High quality language-learning podcasts can provide a cheap, beneficial and portable technology that allows learners the freedom to access useful materials whenever and wherever convenient--especially through smartphones. However, despite the low cost involved in producing and accessing podcasts, educational institutions still seem reluctant to fully utilise them as an integral part of the language-learning process. This presentation will outline the structure of a comprehensive study that analysed the communicative abilities of 102 university freshmen students undertaking a compulsory English oral communication course. The study was divided into a traditional model that was centred-around a paper textbook and digital model where no textbooks were used and the course was structured around a series of high-quality, pedagogically sound English language podcasts. It was found that students progressed in similar ways during the course, regardless of the pedagogical materials used. [For the complete volume of short papers, see ED572005.]