Elevenlabs now allows students to make podcasts based on things they have spoken or written

Students can import their work by cutting and pasting text, sharing a link to a recording, importing a file or scanning a document.

This is only possible using the apps for Android or iOS on a phone or tablet. Get them here

I've tried it three times and this is what I found out about the length, speed and sophistication of the three podcasts:

 

Type	Shortened Title	Number of words	Length	Speed in words per minute	GSE Level	CEFR Level
imported *.txt file	Titanic	964	6’ 6”	158	65-69	B2+
link to same Turboscribe recording	Chocolate 1	1328	8’ 9”	163	62-66	B2
link to same Turboscribe recording	Chocolate 2	1091	7’ 47”	140	61-65	B2

Click on the Shortened Titles to see screen recordings of what the student would see.

The speed of the podcast can be reduced to 80% although at an average of 154 wpm this may not be as necessary as I feel it is with NotebookLM’s podcasts, which average 183 wpm and don't show a transcript.

As you will have seen at the end of two of the screen recordings, clicking on ‘Share’ throws you out of the app. This is why I had to resort to using screen recordings as I could find no other way to share the podcasts.

The level of the language in the podcast about The Titanic is perhaps too high for a B1 student and the fact that in all three podcasts a lot of new information is brought in makes these podcasts less useful than podcasts from NotebookLM and Wondercraft. I imagine that for B2 students these podcasts would be useful further exposure to comprehensible input on a subject they have already spoken or written about.

I haven’t tried yet with cutting and pasting text or scanning a document (handwritten doesn't work) as the source of these podcasts but will try to do so in the next few days.

Elevenlabs offers voices in 22 languages other than English, including French, German, Italian and Spanish so it should work for modern language learners. On the other hand, it is only available for users over 18.