Change Management - Podcast

April 2011

Lecturers
Students

Business & Communication

Autonomous learning
Classroom Context

English

English

B2

Activity/task
Audio

Vocabulary
Grammar
Pragmatics
Prosody

Listening
Speaking
Writing

This teaching resource included in a reliable and renowned organisation’s website (British council) suits the needs of upper-intermediate students who study English for business. They need to develop their speaking and listening skills at the same time they need to expand technical related vocabulary. This resource assists both the lecturer, as he can use this with his students in the classroom, and the students who, rather autonomously, can also explore it. If used by the lecturer, this resource can be used following a task-based approach, as suggested in the guidelines. If not, the learner can follow the steps clearly indicated in the site.

3. The main contribution of this resource is the possibility to be utilised in the classroom and/or autonomously. I would use it as an asynchronous activity included in the LMS platform. It would be revisited in class as the starting point for oral interaction. In this case, I believe that the podcast could be used as an audio file in a Business English class. After listening to the podcast, we would do the exercises presented on the available web page, which also seem interesting and appropriate.
I would add, however, a synonyms exercise in order to strengthen the terminological knowledge that would be acquired. Thus, a separate list of terms would be presented, with terms whose synonyms could be found within the text transcription. This last exercise would be a way of benefiting more from the audio file and I believe that, along with the other exercises, it would be well accepted by the students.
Podcasts are accessible and easy to use by students and are particularly relevant to improve familiarity with different types of accents and prosodic styles. Its interactive approach makes it appealing and motivating to students.
The only problem is the abstract approach of the topic; although it is business-oriented, the theme is mainly conceptual, with no (apparent) direct connection with daily lives.

Lead-in activity/warmer: brainstorm the pros and cons of the need/importance of making changes in a management team. Elicit the following questions: e.g. “Why do management teams make changes in their business/management strategies? What does it involve?”. Elicit some known vocabulary that students will also listen to in the podcast
Step 1: Pre-listening activity. Tell the students they are going to listen to the podcast on the topic you were discussing previously. The podcast will allow students to recognise and practise vocabulary, in addition to practising their listening skills. Students do the preparation task first
Step 2: Listening activity. Sts listen to the podcast and solve tasks 1 and 2. Make sure students can hear the podcast with no interferences. allow the students to repeat the exercise at least once.
Step 3: Students then give feedback on their answers. At the same time, students answer the questions presented in the beginning of the lesson again, according to what they heard.
Step 4: Divide the class into groups of 4 sts (who will be members of a management team) and roleplay a discussion on the kinds of changes students/learners have experienced at work?; or they have to change their management strategy because their current one is no longer effective because the company itself has been through massive changes… While roleplaying this situation, students have to use vocabulary introduced and practised during the class (e.g. pre-listening and listening activities).