This entry provides an evaluation based on Hubbard's (2012) Methodological Framework on The American Life in regards to its adaptability in ESL listening & speaking classes.
1. Technical preview: The show can be directly listened to or downloaded on different devices. According to the homepage of The American Life, the show can be listened to for free from the stream radio archive episodes. As an alternative, one can subscribe to the free weekly podcast and download the old episodes for $0.99 on iTunes or other podcasting tools on a computer or smartphone. For ESL students who are practicing listening and speaking skills in the United States, it is convenient for them to access this show anywhere as long as they have internet connections. Even if they don't have internet connections, they can still access the show in the old-fashioned way by listening to its radio station (click to see a list of radio stations in different state broadcasting this show)
2. Operational description: The simplest way of accessing the show online is by directly going to its radio archives: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives. One can simply click on one of the shows and listen to it. To select listening materials, students can be directed to the "ways to explore" box on the right side of the screen, which looks like this:
Among the four sorting options listed here, students can choose one that interests them the most. For example, exploring "by tag" provides a list of topics covered in all weekly shows, as shown at the beginning of this blog. Students can then pick any topic that interests them and only listen to shows on that topic. One click on the topic "Business" results shows like the following:
It is worthwhile to notice that the above selections of shows all have multiple tags, which means students are likely to encounter them again in searching under a different topic.
If one is up to the idea of subscribe podcasts on mobile devices, The American Life also makes it easy for audience of all age groups, including senior citizens who are not familiar with technology. A video tutorial is provided in the following link on how to get a podcast: http://serialpodcast.org/how-to-listen
3. Teacher fit: From a teacher's point of view, this online show website is 100% authentic, which is designed by native speakers to deliver to native speakers. Because of this, language learning and pedagogical use are not taken into consideration from the content and design of the site. On the other hand, 100% authenticity does not necessarily mean that the show is hard to comprehend. Most shows, as a matter of fact, were recorded clearly in a normal speech rate. Depending on the level of the students, teachers need to introduce this show with caution or do some selective listening in advance.
4. Learner fit: The American Life would work the best as a supplementary listening material assigned to students as homework in an intermediate-advanced ESL listening & speaking class. It would work even better for courses taught within a content-based instruction curriculum, due to the wide range of themes it covers. One show typically lasts for around 50 minutes to an hour, which makes it a good choice as a weekly listening log assignment.
5. Implementation schemes: Students first need to be directed to the website of the show and introduced to the different options they can use to listen to it. Depending on the theme of the class and the level of the students, teachers can either assign a topic for students to listen to or leave it open for them to explore by themselves. The students can be asked to do a short summary in either written (e.g., writing a blog entry) or spoken format (e.g., using Audioboo to record their summaries). Teachers can also ask one student to share his/her listening experiences in the first 5 minutes of class on a daily basis--this serves as an extrinsic motivation for students to complete the listening assignment.
6. Appropriateness judgments: The American Life is a high-quality show that could benefit L2 students who are curious to know more about American culture from the points of view of civilians. However, students who are below the intermediate level English proficiency may find it too hard to understand this show, given the fact that minimum visual and textual support is provided. The most appropriate student group who can benefit the most from this show is intermediate-advanced ESL learners who are studying in a content-based curriculum or in learning about American culture. Different from news programs and other TV shows, The American Life helps to broaden the students' horizons in discovering and understanding the multifaceted details in everyday life of American people.
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