I listened to an English as a Second Language Podcast episode 990-- Being Socially Popular. This episode really caught my attention and I had no idea what this Podcast would actually be like, but it was just like the title says, explaining being socially popular to a second language learner. Obviously this Podcast would be for High School ELL's, and it seems a little strange to be teaching students about popularity, but the conversation between two students is extremely authentic and truthful. The conversation is about a girl waiting for an invitation to the biggest birthday party of the year. She wants to be invited because this girl is the most popular girl in school. Her friend Grant explains how silly it is that people need to be friends with someone that bad. He also states someone needs to put this Miss. Popular in her place. So, besides teaching ELL's about what being popular is, it also as a good storyline in the end. I would use this Podcast to explain popularity in an authentic way to my students and could even have them act out the scenario because it is posted on the site as well. Students would become familiar with the term of "popular" and hopefully realize how silly this is. Being popular is unimportant. What is so nice about the Podcast is that the speaker, Dr. Jeff McQuilin explains every single sentence used in this scenario between 2 friends. So, the students are learning numerous vocabulary words/phrases, which is essential when learning English and good for the students when understanding social skills. We would be able to discuss each phrase in the scenario and students could ask questions for clarification, or even listen to the Podcast for homework and we could discuss this scenario the next day. This Podcast was very interesting and useful for High School ESL learners.
