The Effect of Collaborative Podcasting on English Vocabulary Learning and Retention of Persian University Students

Podcasting is a way to distribute audio files over the Internet. A podcast is an audio file that can be downloaded from the Internet, often in MP3 format. Once downloaded, a podcast can be played back on a computer or transferred to a portable device such as an iPod or other portable media player (PMP), mobile phone, or personal digital assistant (PDA).This paper reports an attempt to see if podcasting can be a valuable tool to improve English vocabulary learning and retention of Persian university students compared with traditional method of vocabulary teaching. Students have been randomly divided into two groups namely experimental and control group. In the experimental group, students are asked to produce podcasts collaboratively and students in the control group are asked to spend the same amount of time in a traditional class practicing vocabulary items. The analysis of covariance shows students in the experimental group significantly outperform students in control group in terms of both learning and retention of vocabulary items

Keywords:

collaboration , podcast , vocabulary , learning , retention