Realtime communication between students and instructors makes a world of difference (in a good way) when it comes to teaching.
The ability to communicate back and forth with students in real time makes the feedback, instruction, and understanding immediate. The tone in both the instructors and students’ voices helps both sides to understand directions, issues, and feelings. Our instruction methods revolve around the student’s progressions and confidence in each of the skills being taught and demonstrated. Hearing a student’s concerns, failures and triumphs is just as important as seeing them. Being able to communicate allows instructors to give immediate feedback, and the ability to adjust our instruction on the fly to make sure students understand the skill and successfully learn it.
It is possible to learn without the use of radios. There are hand signals that are taught as part of courses and although these hand signals are universal in the wind sports realm, not everyone learns them though. At the beginning of each lesson, we talk and demonstrate them, our students recite and demonstrate them back as well.
We started using BbTalkin in 2017. We learned the hard way that you needed to take really good care of them. They need to be rinsed with fresh water after each session and let them dry. Not doing this lead to saltwater corrosion of the head set speakers and microphones. When we replaced those parts, we needed to make sure the gaskets and rings were properly seated – of not, we were shorting out electronics with water intrusion. It didn’t take us long to master the care and operation of the radios.
Today we use the latest versions of the BbTalkin radios, we keep them cleaned, charged and ready to go. We stock spare microphones, cases, gaskets, rings, and speakers as well as a variety of consumable parts and pieces. Not just for us, but for other schools and instructors in the area as well.
Take care of your gear and the gear will take care of you.
A final note: There are other radio systems out there, some commercial, some homemade. Some of these only support one-way communications meaning the instructor can talk to the student, but the student can’t talk back. These systems and methods work, however there needs to be a clear and concise understanding of the expectations each other has prior to heading out into the water.
