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Abstract

With the growing use of digital media in language education, podcasts have emerged as an accessible and authentic resource for developing learners’ listening and vocabulary skills, particularly within English for Specific Purposes (ESP) contexts. The study examines whether specialized podcasts in history, business, and science and technology are suitable for English for Specific Purposes (ESP) learners, based on their lexical coverage. A corpus-based quantitative method analyzed 360 podcast episodes totaling approximately 2.8 million words. Lexical coverage was determined using AntWordProfiler and the BNC/COCA word lists. The findings revealed notable variations across domains: business podcasts demonstrated the highest accessibility, achieving 95% lexical coverage at lower word family thresholds (4000 word families), while history podcasts exhibited the greatest lexical demands, heavily reliant on proper nouns and domain-specific references, requiring up to 7000 word families for optimal comprehension and science and technology podcasts occupied an intermediate position, characterized by technical but relatively predictable vocabulary. The results emphasize the importance of teaching vocabulary specific to a domain, the need for pre-listening scaffolding, and the selection of appropriate podcasts for ESP courses. The research provides insights for teachers, content producers, and learners to help leverage and maximize podcast usage in academic and professional contexts.