Vocabulary Demands of English-as-an-Additional-Language and General-Audience Podcasts and Their Potential for Incidental Vocabulary Learning of CEEC Wordlists in Taiwan

Abstract

Podcasts have emerged as a popular medium for promoting authentic discourse among diverse audiences, including high school teachers and students, alongside movies, television programs, and TED Talks presentations. However, English language educators in contexts where English is taught as a second or foreign language may have doubts about their students' ability to handle the vocabulary demands of podcasts and the potential benefits they offer. Addressing this concern, the present study examined the lexical demands of English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) podcasts and general-audiences podcasts and explored their potential for incidental vocabulary acquisition based on the Taiwan College Entrance Examination Center (CEEC) word lists. A comprehensive analysis of 215 podcast episodes from six distinct programs (All Ears English Podcast, Luke's ENGLISH Podcast, Thinking in English, Before Breakfast, Inside the FBI, and No Stupid Questions) resulted in two corpora, one focused on EAL learners and the other on general audiences, comprising a total of about 1,050,000 lexical units. The anticipated findings of this study will provide valuable insights for teachers who seek engaging materials by shedding light on the lexical load of podcasts and their potential for facilitating incidental vocabulary learning of Taiwan CEEC word lists. Furthermore, the implications of incorporating podcasts into language pedagogy will be thoroughly discussed.

Keywords

Academic podcasts / Lexical coverage / Vocabulary demands / Academic vocabulary / Incidental Vocabulary Learning