ICRT & Its Program Schedule

ICRT (International Community Radio Taipei) is one of the few radio stations where news of Taiwan in English can be heard. Years ago when CD players were not commonly used, I often recorded segments from the 7-8am Morning News and selected some for my classes to listen to. Then in class, I would challenge the students to catch the main idea. I would have them listen for more than once, usually two or three times. Sometimes, before having the students listen for the gist of one piece, I would made the task very easy first by playing a few and just asking them how many pieces of news they heard.

Why did I bring ICRT into my classroom?  To begin with, I wanted to expose students to authentic English, English spoken by native speakers at normal speed not for pedagogical but communication reason. Next, since they had some knowledge of what had just happened or was happening in Taiwan, they would find it easier to understand the English version of the news and at the same time learned how to talk about Taiwan events in English, which could give them a sense of achievement. Finally, doing something different was always exciting.

ICRT is a really good resource for learning English. I read from the book 我如何學英語 (How I Learned English) a story in which someone with a good command of English turned on the radio in each room that was already tuned to ICRT the moment he got home from work. And a former student I taught long ago who, without ever going abroad then, spoke as a native speaker listened to ICRT every day, enjoying listening to the DJs.

Nowadays, thanks to technology, ICRT is available online. The following is its program schedule. After checking it out, just browse the website and enjoy the exploration. Remember to click on LIVE to listen to the program.

http://www.icrt.com.tw/onair_program.php?poId=5&ptId=15