Best Skype audio set-up
The secret of teaching English via Skype
Get your Skype audio right!
What a crying shame. You are already an English language teacher, or you have decided to do our Learn to teach English course, and you have even started to get students over the internet ... but they can't hear you properly, and worse still, you can't hear them clearly, and the most evil factor ... they cannot hear the class audio that you play to them during the lessons via Skype.
And you think that getting all these factors is easy ?
Wrong, and you should seriously think about it.
Look at it this way .... when you Skype your mother or girlfriend, what are you really doing to talk and listen to them ?
You are using Skype, have a fancy USB headset with headphones and microphone, and you just Skype the other person, they answer, and you start talking.
Perfect.
Now, try and play a song to that person on Skype with you.
And try and talk at the same time.
And whilst talking and playing the song, try and understand what the other person is saying back.
And .. most important, try hearing the song whilst it's playing.
If you have never tried this, go ahead.
Most people find this almost impossible to achieve because they don't need to play songs whilst talking to someone on Skype so they have never really had the problem.
What is needed to teach English over Skype ?
You need to be able to talk to the student, and for her or him to hear you loud and clear, and that is easy. But you also need to play the class audio for the New English File or New Headway courses to the student. And these are either on a cd-rom, or and in MP3 format.
But you also have to be able to hear the class audio yourself 'live' whilst playing it to the student.
And you also sometimes need to hear the student speak whilst playing the audio.
Example.
Unit 1 or whatever unit in one of the course books at a certain point asks you to play the audio for that section to the student. But to stop it after every sentence and get the student to repeat what they just heard.
You really can't keep plugging and unplugging your microphone from your computer all the time can you ? And if that were the only problem.
Ever tried playing a song to someone whilst on Skype by unplugging both your microphone and the headphones .... what did you get ?
You got a nasty thing called feedback, where the audio going out through your external or built-in speakers went right back through the built in microphone resulting in nasty feedback bomb.
What are the correct Skype audio settings ?
We have news for you. The audio settings to be able to teach English via Skype, have nothing to do with Skype at all.
And neither do you have to fork out a fortune to get a recording studio in your office or living room.
The correct audio set-up when teaching English via Skype is very simple, but needs some tweaking and the hell we are going to tell you here this important aspect.
Not because we wouldn't want you to find out. But because we don't want our competition latching onto this simple but hard to sort out issue.
And that's why, in our learn to teach English course, we will also show you how to get an absolutely perfect audio situation for both you, and the student.
Remember, you might be, or may become the best teacher of English via Skype in the world, but if you can't hear the student clearly, how she is pronouncing the language, and she can't hear you nor the audio you play ... then you will lose that student, and be very frustrated yourself. We help you sort this out in our course.