Podcasts

The Learn Hindi from Bollywood Movies podcast provides a way of learning vocabulary while having a few laughs. The podcast includes audio snippets of dialogues from Bollywood films with a translation into English provided by the podcast host. One would think such a technique would be most useful at the beginning levels, but I believe that, for the intermediate to advanced learner, the podcasts serves as a way of refreshing words that may be fading from the learner's receptive vocabulary. The beginner would probably only benefit if he or she were a fan of Bollywood films to the point of seeing the film after the podcast or recognizing the film from which the snippet was taken. The use of humor does keep listeners going back - whether it is beneficial to their Hindi skills or not.

http://www.cuttingchai.com/HouseFull/

In terms of an English language podcast, the podcast I am most drawn to is the StoryCorps Podcast from NPR. The podcast provides authentic dialogues between people on a variety of topics. The podcasts are all recordings of pair of real people in which one person acts as interviewer and the other interviewee. The site offers a great variety of interviews. Most of these interviews deal with topics that are accessible to English language learners from a variety of cultures. There is enough background information written about each podcast for the learner to get his or her bearings before diving in. For those learners who need extra support, the transcript is available just a click away. This is not a podcast catered specifically to English language learners, but I believe it is well suited to their needs and provides a snapshot into the lives of real people that would be a wonderful springboard for discussion.

http://www.storycorps.org/
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4516989