PARSONS, Martin – Applying podcasts to English language education and social issues...
Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

Applying podcasts to English language educationand social
issues in a Japanese university

Martin Parsons
Faculty of Business, Hannan University, Matsubara City, Japan
mp@hannan-u.ac.jp

Abstract
The rapid ageing of Japanese society has led to a dramatic increase in the numberof elderly people living alone, some of whom feel they are no longer of value to society.
Many younger Japanese people have little contact with older people, yet these sameolder citizens have lived full lives and experienced or witnessed profound changes inJapan and the wider world. These experiences may represent a learning opportunity foryounger Japanese if they could be made accessible.
Concurrently, while most learners in Japan study English for several years, few havethe opportunity to use English outside the classroom. Moreover, many find themselvesin teacher-centred learning environments, are passive in class, appear to lackmotivation, and are increasingly unwilling to study or work abroad. Podcasts, a popularform of communication, offer a potential medium to give foreign language learners theopportunity to engage with and speak on topics of removed from their classroom
experience.
This paper describes the development of an English language, oral-history podcast
produced by students in collaboration with older members of the community, focussing
on the recollections of events in recent Japanese history which are meaningful to them.
The aims of the podcast are to attempt to forge personal connections between membersof the community who rarely come into contact with one another; deepen theunderstanding among young Japanese of recent history; and give students meaningfulsubject matter with which to develop their English language skills.
Keywords: Podcast, EFL, social inclusion, elderly loneliness, Japan, oral history

1 – Introduction
Students in the modern, globalising world are increasingly being asked to display
multi-faceted skill sets alongside their specialised fields of knowledge, including260

PARSONS, Martin – Applying podcasts to English language education and social issues...
Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

technological know-how, foreign language expertise and also exhibit an awareness ofand commitment to their community and the wider society.
With regard to technology, a mastery of various digital applications and platforms isoften expected. While digital technology is in an almost constant state of flux – emerging,developing, or even becoming obsolete and/or discontinued (such as in the case of VHS
and audio tape), the importance of being able to use the available technology to produce
and disseminate data and information has remained constant, giving rise to the term
‘information society’. However, as the aphorism attributed to Clifford Stoll notes, ‘data is
not information; information is not knowledge; knowledge is not understanding; andunderstanding is not wisdom’. It is the skills that transform information into knowledge,
which then can be distributed and wisely used for the betterment of society that are
emerging as the most valuable in the 21st century, a concept often referred to as the‘knowledge society’ (Drucker, 1993). UNESCO considers that “the idea of the informationsociety is based on technological breakthroughs”, while “the concept of knowledge
societies encompasses much broader social, ethical and political dimensions”, which
requires the application of education and critical thinking (UNESCO, 2005, p. 17). The
UN further states that the knowledge society “is not only about technological innovations,but also about human beings, their personal growth and their individual creativity,
experience and participation” (UN, 2005).
With regard to foreign language skills, for better or worse, the reality is that English is
now the language most commonly used in many domains, including science, academia
and the business world (Crystal, 2003; Graddol, 2006; Lønsmann, 2015). Knowledge
always has been and will continue to be created and distributed in all languages, yet theinternational exchange of ideas and knowledge is now likely to be conducted more often
in English than in any other language, implying that the development of English language
skills is of great importance for future participants in globalising societies.
With regard to social commitment, it must be recognised that language is acommunication tool and should be rooted in community. Language learning for the sakeof test-taking, as is often the case in a context like Japan, is a sterile goal. In short, for
language learning to be of genuine value, it ought to be infused with social and cultural
purposes and meanings.
This paper describes the genesis and development of a preliminary attempt to drawthese strands together in a single project with Japanese university learners of English,
through the use of oral-history podcasts to engage with older members of society. In
order to elucidate the project, a brief synopsis of various issues pertinent to it (English

261

PARSONS, Martin – Applying podcasts to English language education and social issues...
Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

language education in Japan; demographic issues related to the elderly; and thedefinition of a podcast) will be presented and then followed by a description of the project
itself and the results of a survey of the participants.

2 – English language education in JapanThe Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT) and business groups such as the Japan Business Federation (Keirendan) havelong urged improvements in English language education at the tertiary level, specificallycalling for educational approaches which will develop a knowledge-based society andglobal human resources (Keidanren, 2000; 2013; MEXT, 2003; 2008; 2010; 2013a;
2014).
Paradoxically, over the same period it has been noted that the number of young
people willing to work or study abroad has been dropping (Dujarric & Takenaka, 2014;
Sanno Institute of Management, 2017; Tanikawa, 2011). One of the main reasons forthis seems to be a lack of confidence in foreign language skills, which in turn is thought
to be caused by the teacher-centred educational approach still common in many
Japanese classrooms (Kimura, Nakata & Okamura, 2001; Nishino, 2008). In the case ofEnglish language education, this is typified by the entrance examinations most learners
take before progressing to high school and university, in which the acquisition ofgrammatical and lexical knowledge and the ability to translate, often de-contextualised,
sentences between English and Japanese are emphasised (Brown & Yamashita, 1995;
Guest, 2000; Imamura, 1978; Taguchi, 2005), and which in turn is believed by many tobe the underlying cause for the prevalence of a teaching methodology known as
yakudoku (usually glossed into English as ‘grammar-translation’).
Although some have seen improvements in the way these entrance examinations are
structured (e.g., Guest, 2008), it is still perceived by many that they are the agent which
drives English teachers in Japanese schools to use the so-called yakudoku method(Gorsuch, 2001; Hino, 1988). For example, in 2012, Professor Negishi Masashi of Tokyo
University of Foreign Studies claimed that English language teaching could be expected
to improve only when university entrance examinations begin to test for morecommunicative skills (Yomiuri Shimbun, 2012). As the status of one’s graduating
university is widely believed to have a strong influence on future employment prospects,
entrance examinations are highly influential in education (Nakane, 1984; Reischauer,
1977; Sugimoto, 2010; Takahashi, 2004).

262

PARSONS, Martin – Applying podcasts to English language education and social issues...
Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

The upshot is that in Japan, where there is rarely any need to use English in daily life,
few learners have opportunities to engage with English communicatively even in theclassroom, and they tend to be passive learners who often have difficulty in expressing
opinions (Shimizu, 2006; Turner & Hiraga, 1996), with wholly expected negative effects
on motivation (Berwick & Ross, 1989; Brown, 2004; Kikuchi, 2013; Kimura, Nakata &Okumura, 2001; Ushioda, 2013).
The response to this situation from MEXT urges that ‘for undergraduate education,
we should promote activities to change the quality of education, such as active learning(learning in which students proactively find issues and solutions), interactive lectures,practice, and experiments’ (MEXT, 2013b), a position which informs this project.

3 – The situation facing the elderly in Japan
Japan is a rapidly ageing society. Births have been declining for a number of years,
and despite the fact that the number of deaths has also been declining, Japan has now
entered a period of population decline (IPSS, 2014). As general health care has
improved, maternal and infant mortality rates have decreased dramatically over thecourse of the last century. People are living longer, and Japan now has the greatest
proportion (28.1%) of elderly citizens in its population in the world (Statistics Japan,2018).
At the same time, the make-up of Japanese households, which until relatively recently
had often been multi-generational, has also rapidly changed. Although the overall
population is decreasing, due to various social and legal changes, such as greater
autonomy and laws on equality for women, the number of households in Japan is rising(IPSS, 2014). By 2015, there were 5,928,000 people aged over 65 living alone, almost
7 times as many as in 1980 (Statistics Japan, 2018).
In Western imagery, the elderly in Japan seem to be believed to be treated with great
respect by younger members of society. Unfortunately, this idealisation of aging may notreflect reality explored in research, which sees a more nuanced and not necessarily
positive attitude toward the elderly among Japanese youth (Koyano, 1989). The
demographic changes noted in the previous paragraph may also have at least in partcaused a situation in which the elderly now often find themselves to have little contact
with other people (OECD, n.d.). This has, in turn, given rise to a phenomenon of elderly
people also dying alone, sometimes their deaths being undiscovered for days, weeks oreven months (Morita, et. al., 2015; Onishi, 2017). A 2010 government survey found that
almost two thirds of people over the age of 60 worry about dying alone with no-one to263

PARSONS, Martin – Applying podcasts to English language education and social issues...
Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

care for them (Cabinet Office, 2010). It has even been suggested that some elderly
Japanese are committing petty crimes simply to be put in prison in order to avoid living
in solitude (e.g. Fukuda, 2018). Clearly, Japan is not just facing a social-security crisis,
but also a crisis of loneliness amongst the elderly.
However, these same older citizens have lived full lives, have experienced andwitnessed profound changes in Japanese society and in the wider world. This knowledge
and these experiences represent a vast learning opportunity for Japanese youth if they
could be made accessible. Yet, one obvious corollary of older citizens becoming
estranged from the rest of society is that younger Japanese people have come to haveless contact with senior citizens, even with older generations of their own family, aphenomenon which the this project attempts to grapple with, albeit on a small scale.

4 – On podcasts
In recent years, podcasts have become a very popular mode of digital communication
around the world. There are now literally thousands of podcasts on a wide variety of
topics and in various languages available to consumers. According to Edison Research,
44% of people in the USA alone, an estimated 124 million people, have listened to a
podcast and 48 million listen to at least one podcast each week (Edison Research, 2018).
Regardless, in Japan they are almost unknown. Anecdotally, few seem to be aware
even of the existence of podcasting technology. Prior to commencing this project, asurvey of 1st and 2nd year university students in Japan, including the students involved in
the study reported on here, revealed that 77% (n=180) had never heard the term
‘podcast’, and of those that had few were able to define it accurately.
The term ‘podcast’ itself is a portmanteau of the words ‘iPod’ and ‘broadcast’. A simple
way of thinking about podcasts is to imagine extremely mobile television or radio.
Generally, and notwithstanding newer technologies such as ‘on-demand’ and‘streaming’, one can only watch or listen to whatever is being broadcast at a given
moment. By contrast, a podcast is usually hosted on a dedicated website from which it
may be downloaded by consumers. The video or audio can then be replayed on thedevice of choice – smartphone, tablet, computer, etc. – whenever and wherever, without
regard to internet connection.
A growing body of research on podcast use in education has been conducted, whichis largely positive and suggests that podcasts are well received by students. In a generalreview of the literature on video podcasts, Kay (2012) found most studies reported
positively regarding student affective and cognitive attitudes. Some of the studies

264

PARSONS, Martin – Applying podcasts to English language education and social issues...
Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

reviewed also noted improvements in study behaviour. Copley (2007) found that the
majority of students taking traditional courses rated podcasts used in the preparation ofassessments, note-taking, and review of missed lectures as very useful. Greene andCrespi (2012) found that students in business classes enjoyed creating video podcasts
and considered it educationally valuable. In a study on the use of podcasts, Nwosu et.
al. (2017) found that medical education podcasts show potential in facilitating
communication between various stakeholders in palliative care, such as private citizens,
researchers and policymakers.
More specifically in foreign language education, Kavaliauskiene and Anusiene (2009)
found that students considered listening to podcasts outside of class time less anxiety
inducing than listening to authentic materials in class. Hasan and Tan (2012) foundimproved listening skills among university ESL learners, as well as positive response tousing the podcasts. Al Qasim and Al Fadda (2013) also ascribe improved listening skills
and motivation among university students to podcast use, while Bamanger and Alhassan(2015) found students highly motivated by podcasts, which led to improved writing
performance.
After receiving a brief description of what a podcast is, 82% of students (n=177) in theinitial survey expressed an interest in using them in English language learning. Thissuggests the possibility of employing an innovative approach to foreign language
learning in the Japanese context. In such an EFL environment, where English language
usage usually ceases at the classroom door, podcasts may represent an as yet largely
unexploited resource.
In a broader sense, podcasting technology also represents an educational opportunity
beyond the learning of language and content. Nie, et. al. (2008) claim that results from astudy in which students produced podcasts ‘also highlighted other benefits, particularly
in developing team-working, organisation and other transferable skills which wereperceived crucial for medical students. Similarly, Beamish and Brown (2008) indicatethat producing podcasts was positively viewed by students who saw the process as‘increasing the relevance of their learning experience.’
The studies reviewed here, from a number of different contexts and geographicalregions, indicate that podcasts have the potential to provide positive educational
outcomes for students, and that student-generated podcasts also have the potential to
be a positive agent in affective domains.

5 – The pilot project265

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Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

Against this backdrop, a pilot project to engage students in the production of podcasts
based on the memories of older members of society, which sought to address the issues
outlined above, was conceived. In attempting to draw all the relevant issues together ina single project, the study was driven by two basic questions:1.

Is a project/approach of this type likely to be received positively by

students and community members?
2.

Is a project/approach of this type worthy of further development andinvestigation?

The participants in the project were 26 students enrolled in a public university in aregional city of Japan, and seven elderly residents of the same city. The pilot projectproceeded as follows:3.

An older community member provided a written suggestion for a topic fora podcast from their life experience. Some examples were the impact of thewidespread introduction white goods to homes in the 1950s and 1960s; memories
of a once popular festival which is now rarely celebrated; and childhood wartime
memories.
4.

In pairs, students undertook background research into the topic, followed

by writing potential interview questions, searching for useful archival material,music and sound effects to be used in the podcast.
5.

Students were given instruction in editing audio, using a free application,

Audacity.
6.

The older members of the community visited the students at their

university. One 90-minute lesson was set aside to conduct and record interviews.
7.

Students then storyboarded, wrote, recorded and edited a short oral-

history, audio podcast.
8.

The completed podcast was presented to the older person for commentand feedback.
9.

Finally, online surveys were conducted to ascertain the participants’attitudes to the project.

6 – Results
At the end of the project, twenty-five students and six of the seven community
members took questionnaire surveys to assess their impressions of the project.

266

PARSONS, Martin – Applying podcasts to English language education and social issues...
Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

Only two of the twenty-five students said that the technology was known to them
before undertaking the production of podcasts. Additionally, eighteen noted that it was
not easy for them to learn to use the technology, and a further twelve reported having
technical difficulties, suggesting that successfully completing this project was not
something that came easily to them.
Moreover, nineteen students expressed a concern about their pronunciation and othervocal characteristics. It is rare in most English language classes in Japan for students tohave the opportunity to actually hear themselves speak in a foreign language. It may
simply be that not having listened to themselves before, many students were surprised
and/or disappointed by the sound of their own voice, just as native speakers of alanguage often react negatively to hearing themselves on recorded media. On the other
hand, this suggests possibilities for improving the teaching of pronunciation through theuse of self and peer-review of personal recordings.
However, nearly all students (24) said that they found the project to have beeninteresting. One area of concern in the conception of the project was in the basic idea ofasking students to talk to older people not known to them. Given the changing
demographics in Japan (outlined above), the idea that the students and elderly citizens
just might not ‘be on the same wave length’ was a genuine possibility which would almost
certainly have led to the failure of the project from the outset. Yet, twenty students
reported enjoying the opportunity of talking with the older citizens, and a further twentytwo said that they would like to be able to learn more about history in this way.
Twenty students also said they thought the project had been good for their English
language learning, though it was not asked of them in what areas they felt it to bebeneficial. Nineteen also reported that they would like to use more podcasts in theirEnglish language learning, and sixteen said that they would like to make more podcasts,suggesting that the potential observed in research in other contexts held true for thisstudy in Japan.
Six of seven older community members responded to a questionnaire and reported ahigh level of satisfaction with the project.
Five of the six felt that students had prepared well for their interview, although one
person was disappointed not have had more feedback or Q & A on the day of theinterview, reflecting the possibility that this person, at least, was not fully aware of theaims of the project. Importantly, all six felt that the students were interested in what they
had to say, confirming the survey results from the students in which they registered theirinterest in meeting the older community members.

267

PARSONS, Martin – Applying podcasts to English language education and social issues...
Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

Three of the six considered the completed podcast as excellent, and two thought it
good. One person felt that the podcast did not accurately reflect what they had wanted
to say, but unfortunately did not provide any details.
Finally, all six community members reported that they enjoyed the project, enjoyedcommunicating with the students and that they would like to engage in similar projects inthe future. One person commented that participating in the project with young people
infused her or him with the energy of youth. All six also said they would be prepared torecommend participating in such a project to their friends, further reflecting their positive
evaluation of the project.

7 – Conclusion and reflections
The aim of this project was, in a sense, to provide ‘proof of concept’ for the idea ofbringing together several different strands of educational practice in a single, unifying
project.
Responses to the questionnaires in response to Research Question 1 suggest that it
was attractive to both students and elder community members, who largely reported
positive impressions of the project. As such, creating oral-history podcasts based on thememories of older members of society emerges as a viable approach to creating a link
between social groups that otherwise might not come into contact, while at the sametime potentially enhancing students’ digital literacy, communication skills and English
language skills.
The fact that community members and most students expressed a strong interest in
doing something similar again indicates that, as Research Question 2 asked, the project
has the potential to be developed into a larger, ongoing project which is not only of
educational value to students, but of potential social value to their community.
Several lines of research suggest themselves for future investigation. From theEnglish language learning standpoint:
Are there perceptible improvements to English language skills as a result of
this kind of project, and concretely what improvements can be detected (e.g.
pronunciation, intonation; listening comprehension; development of storytellingskills, etc.)? In this project, many students lacked confidence in their personal
production of English, which opens the possibility of following a line of research
into the effects of instructor directed pronunciation and intonation teaching andfeedback assistance in conjunction with podcasting technology. While most268

PARSONS, Martin – Applying podcasts to English language education and social issues...
Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

students felt this project was beneficial for their own English language learning, it
was not specified in what way. Delving more deeply into this would be worthwhile.

From the technical standpoint:
Does a project of this type lead to perceptible improvements in digital literacy
among students, and specifically of what nature? Does engagement in this kindof project lead to students being better equipped to participate in a global, digitalsociety?

From the social standpoint:
Does this type of project help raise consciousness among students of thesituation of elderly members of society? Do elderly members of society feel moreengaged and more valued? Are there perceptible improvements to students’communication skills?

Along with the above suggestions for future studies, some caveats about the present
study should also be mentioned. In some cases, the general quality of the completed
podcasts was lacking. To some extent this was a consequence of stylistic choices by
students, who had not had experience in creating this kind of media before. However,physical and technological issues faced by students also played a part in the quality
concerns of the finished product. Finding suitably quiet locations for recording ofinterviews turned out to be challenging. The facilities available at the university where
this study took place for students to edit their podcasts were poorly equipped for audio
podcast production. Computer rooms are shared by many students simultaneously,
meaning there is the possibility of extraneous noise in recordings. The quality of
microphones provided in the computer rooms was less than optimal, leading to a great
deal of hiss in recordings as well as leading to frustration on the part of students.
It also became clear as the project progressed that more time should probably havebeen allocated to giving students a chance to become familiar with recording equipment
and editing software. Students are extremely proficient in using their personal smart
telephones to engage in a wide range of tasks, but apparently less so when using more
specialised equipment and software – at least in this particular case. An all too common
assumption that younger people like millennials are more technologically savvy than priorgenerations may lead to the mistaken conclusion that they do not require assistance inthis domain. For example, it has been noted that the students in this study had little to269

PARSONS, Martin – Applying podcasts to English language education and social issues...
Para lá da tarefa: implicar os estudantes na aprendizagem de línguas estrangeiras no ensino superior.
Porto: FLUP, 2019, pp. 260-274
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/9789898969217/paraa14

no experience of listening to podcasts, let alone creating them. As such, it seems likelythat in many cases they would not have been aware enough of the importance of thesound quality of the recordings they were making until the time for editing came, at which
point it is generally too late do make all but superficial improvements to quality. Some
reported not really understanding how to use recording equipment well, and the audio ofrecordings suggested that the placement of microphones for interviews was not wellconsidered. It is very likely that more time dealing with these issues in a practical, handson sense would have been advantageous.
As such, investigators seeking to undertake similar projects should endeavour toensure the best possible scenario for success by giving students ample practice timewith the various components of the project, and in securing good quality microphones;
computers with enough processing power to ensure smooth editing (this would be ofeven greater importance in dealing with video podcasts); and locations for conducting
and recording interviews which minimise extraneous noise.

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