One of the best things about the world of podcasts is that you can find broadcasts relating to just about any topic. For example, if you are teaching German and you have a student who loves soccer, you can assign the student to listen to the Goethe-Institut's German-language podcast dedicated to the sport. Ask your student to write a summary of the podcast in their native language or to translate words they found it difficult to understand.
A foreign language teacher quoted at World Language Classroom Resources, a site that offers help to language instructors, describes helping his or her students create a podcast series about the Central American and Caribbean countries. You can borrow this idea and split your students into different groups and ask them to create a podcast script, assigning them a different country or city. This idea offers two learning opportunities: students learn a great deal about their own topic while writing the script, and learn about other topics when they listen to the other podcasts. You and your students can use programs such as Audacity to record their podcasts.
In a presentation about using blogs, wikis and podcasts in the foreign language classroom, Lara Ducate & Lara Lomicka advise teachers to assign their students to create an advertisement of at least 3 minutes for a city where the language they teach is spoken. During this advertisement, the students can tell the listener what to see, describe fun activities unique to the city and more.
Recording your own class lectures can be a big help for your students and for other curious folks on the Internet. If you record your class sessions and upload them as podcasts, your students can easily access them after school. This helps students who were absent to stay caught up with class material. Further, if a student hears you speaking the language you teach more often than just during class time, they are more likely to absorb the language.
Assigning different kinds of podcasts will provide your students with different experiences. For example, the German teacher can assign students to listen to news podcasts. News shows are usually very different from other kinds of broadcasts in tone and content. Assign students to listen to podcasts that capture short story readings or other kinds of artistic expressions in the foreign language.