Podcasting in EFL/ ESL classrooms

Among all the mediums that were considered  great tools to be used effectively in EFL/ESL classroom for enhancing learning and teaching , podcasts are the closest to my heart.

 Nowadays in our busy world when everyone  is runnig out of time and complaining of its deficiency, when we have to deal with great flow of information  everyday and to get it via reading, by ''ruining'' our eyesight., and  reading being time consuming and tiresome  in such situations, podcasts are here for us ,as  the best solution to these problems .

As a current student and as a future TEFL professional I feel  a great relief that there are other, more useful,interesting and engaging ways  to learn about something and enjoy it witout wasting your time and health on reading.

I feel great as I can listen to something interesting whenever and wherever it`s  more convenient for me. I mostly listen to podcasts in public transport or while doing other works at home. I can listen to my favorite podcasts every time by downloading and saving them. I really like that I can use any kind of device listen to them, starting from mobile phones to netbook/notebook.Thus I appreciate it`s accesibility and mobility. 

I like categorization,the fact that I can choose any topic from my interests and needs and there are bunch of podcasts that I can subscribe and listen at that moment or later.

To my mind podcasting should and moreover must be used in EFL/ESL classrooms. They are useful, informative, authentic.They make students '''creative consumers and creators'' they make students/teachers to have "real audience", they develop students aural/oral skills and  finally they make students to connect their personal inerests with real ,popular activities and learn to love what they do or will do.

Well, I think there can be some minor issues with podcasting that are not common in reading,such asdifferent accents of speakers, orbad  audio quality, but these problems are quite solvable.

P.S One thing I was thniking over was whther there are such programs or applications that are changing texts into audio files. I think this would be great))))