The Effectiveness of Podcasts in Developing the ‎Listening and Speaking ‎Skills of EFL Secondary ‎Stage Students and Motivation ‎

Abstract
This study was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of podcasts in developing EFL listening and speaking skills and students` motivation for secondary stage students. Participants of the study were forty students of the first year secondary stage at Borg Noor El-Hommos Secondary School, Aga, Dakahlyia governorate and were divided into a control group and an experimental group. The instruments of the study were listening and speaking skill questionnaires to determine the most important skills needed for students, a pre-post listening and speaking skill tests to determine the level of students in these skills, and a pre-post motivation scale. Validity and reliability were determined then, the pre- listening test, the pre-speaking test and the pre-scale were administered on both groups. The experimental group was taught using podcasts. In contrast, the control group was taught with the regular method. Finally, post- listening test, post-speaking test, and post-motivation scale were administered on both groups. Results showed that the experimental group students performed well in listening sub-skills especially (listening for attitude, word recognition skill, listening for details, and listening for gist respectively), and for speaking, they performed well in speaking sub-skills (pronunciation, fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, and grammar respectively).  This showed that the treatment has an effective impact on improving EFL first-year secondary stage students ` listening and speaking skills and enhance students motivation towards learning English language. According to all of that, it could be concluded that using podcasts to develop EFL listening and speaking skills and students` motivation for secondary stage students are very effective.
Key words: listening skills, speaking skills, motivation, podcasts.