Intro
This short, 2 minute video shares how Voice Talent Online helped a leading UK educational publisher deliver new listening and speaking content at scale for learners aged 11–16. The project covered French, German and Spanish, with demanding technical specifications and tight deadlines ahead of a new school year.
Hit play to hear the story. Then, if it sounds familiar, let us know how we can support your next release.
About the client
Our client is a major UK educational publisher whose resources are used in 9 out of 10 schools. Their print and digital materials are a trusted part of classroom life for secondary students across the country. In recent years, their focus has increasingly shifted towards richer, platform-based learning experiences, including interactive language content.
For this project, they set out to refresh and expand their GCSE listening and speaking materials for learners aged 11–16 in French, German and Spanish. The goal was to offer students more engaging, natural-sounding audio that would sit neatly within their evolving online educational platform.
The challenge
The client’s in-house team was well equipped, with a studio facility on site and clear creative direction. However, three practical challenges stood in the way of delivering everything internally.
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Casting the right voices
They needed a bank of voices that felt authentic, engaging and age-appropriate across all three languages. Each voice had to align with their brand and with the expectations of teachers and students in the UK. -
Managing large-scale, technically demanding production
The content went far beyond simple narration. Every item had to follow strict technical rules around pauses, beeps, phrases, questions and answers. Multiply that across French, German and Spanish, and the volume of recordings and edits became considerable. -
Maintaining broadcast-standard quality under time pressure
Everything needed to sound consistent and polished, with rock-solid timing and clarity, and it all had to be ready before the start of the new school year. Meanwhile, their competitors were also preparing new releases.
Handling all of this in house would have stretched the team thin, distracted them from their core platform work, and increased the risk of delays.
How Voice Talent Online helped
Voice Talent Online were brought in to provide specialist audio support while the client stayed in control of the learner experience and platform strategy.
Collaborative casting and direction
We began by short-listing a range of carefully selected voice talents for French, German and Spanish. Once casting was agreed, we invited the client’s team into the sessions. They joined live and directed the talent with our support, ensuring every line landed exactly as they needed. The sessions were focused, efficient and highly collaborative, drawing on the client’s deep experience in directing voice talent.
Specialist production at scale
While the client team concentrated on their platform and digital content, VTO took responsibility for the technical production workload. Our engineers:
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Recorded hours of scripted material across three languages
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Applied consistent technical standards to pauses, beeps, question and answer structures and comprehensions
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Edited, checked and prepared the audio to a broadcast-ready standard
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Delivered organised, ready-to-use files that could be dropped into the platform with minimal friction
Early technical challenges were identified quickly and ironed out through clear communication. Together, we refined the workflow into a smooth, predictable process that served both teams well over several months.
Results
The collaboration delivered a set of clear, measurable outcomes.
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On-time launch
The client met their new school-year deadline, avoiding the knock-on effects that delays can have on teachers, timetables and student expectations. -
Beautifully produced multilingual audio
Students now experience richer, more natural voices across French, German and Spanish. Every piece of content follows the required technical rules, supporting clearer comprehension and more confident exam preparation. -
Stronger market position
By releasing refreshed, high-quality content on time, the publisher further strengthened their position as a go-to provider in the UK secondary education space. The new audio helps reinforce the quality teachers already associate with their brand. -
Freed internal capacity
By outsourcing the specialist audio production to VTO, the client’s internal team could focus entirely on their platform roadmap, digital features and overall release strategy, rather than being tied up in editing and logistics.
What this means for other educational platforms
If you are building or expanding an educational platform – whether for schools, further education, workplace learning or language training – you may recognise similar pressures.
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You know exactly what you want the learner experience to be.
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You have strong subject expertise and a clear product roadmap.
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But scaling multilingual, technically precise audio content in house can be slow, stressful and distracting.
Voice Talent Online specialises in bridging that gap. We help education and training providers produce large volumes of high-quality audio content across multiple languages, while you stay focused on your core platform, pedagogy and release milestones.
Ready to explore your next release
If you are planning new listening or speaking materials, updating an existing language offering, or taking your educational content into new markets, we would be happy to talk.
Share a little about your platform, your timelines and the languages you care about, and we will outline how a similar collaborative approach could work for you.
Or, if you prefer, start with a short call to sense-check what is possible. Sometimes a 15 minute conversation is all it takes to see a clear path forward.