Suggestion : Conversations lessons

[Amokrane]

Hello Thomas,

I was thinking yesterday about something , your website has got many podcasts from basic to advanced level ,so that we can improve our language understanding and enrich our vocabulary , the forum allows us to write in english and that's good . But something is missing , something very very important i mean :speaking !
How about doing some conversation classes, of course whenever you get some free time . we can go on skype , put the conference ON , and we will talk about a certain topic !

Furtheremore , even if you haven't got much time , we can just create this conference ( so we add each other's account ) and we get connected on it , and if there are persons available there they will be free to do their conversation .. you know what i mean

Waiting for your feedbacks , may be you've ever thought about this before ?

[John Doe]

That would be hard to gather people I think... 

[Thomas]

Well, yes, we've discussed this a couple of times on the forum, the idea of a public chat, but I don't know if anybody was thinking about doing it on skype or anything.

Actually, last year in April or May I actually did talk on skype with a few of my listeners, the ones who emailed me and asked about it. The difference is, then I only had a few hundred listeners and I got maybe 1 or 2 emails a week, and now there are several thousand listeners and I get 5 to 10 emails a day!

So, here's the thing: yes, this idea really does interest me, and yes, I've thought about it before, and even done it a few times! And now that you bring it up again, it really interests me, I could say (just making up dates here) something like "ok, every saturday at 4 pm french time we have a 30 minute live chat on skype, here's how to join...etc.". I think that would be a really great idea, and would definitely provide the one thing podcasts & the forum cannot, the speaking aspect. However, there's one big problem: what if 50 people join? If it's just 4 or 5 people, even 7 or 8, it's not a problem, but if 20, 50, or 100 people join, then it becomes too big! (of course, the first time we did it, it might only have 2 or 3 people, but as with anything that happens on a regular basis, more people join every time! the newsletter is now up to 160 subscribers, for example, after only 4 editions, and the first edition was only sent to 92 -- 2 or 3 people subscribe every day)

Now, if you can figure out a way to handle large groups of people (I think optimistically for the podcast, I've been doing it since the beginning), then we can further discuss the idea

[Amokrane]

Yes i've already thought about this problem . There are many software which are used for visioconferences , like : Microsoft Office Live Meeting , i don't know really how much people it can support, but i'm going to look for this information since i've got a meeting this friday on facebook ( that'll be my first time using this ) i'll get you back an answer soon

Lets finish by this english proverb : " When there is a hope , there is a way. And , where there is a way , there is a will "