Earlier this year, Ireland’s Teaching Council invited all registered members to apply in a lottery to attend Feilte, its festival of digital-teaching projects to celebrate World Teachers’ Day in Dublin, on October 5th, 2013.
IDK was later invited to present on classroom acoustics at the conference.
With 75% of a school-day consisting of students listening to spoken content, positive classroom acoustics are needed for most to access the curriculum.
That’s where the speech banana comes in.
@fboss Learning about the Speech Banana at #feilte from @irishdeafkids pic.twitter.com/E1Kj4HGDS0
— Fred Boss (@fboss) Oct 05, 2013
The teachers we met, were blown away by the visual image of the speech banana, and particularly that some sounds are grouped so closely together.
We didn’t even mention the Ling sounds – which many parents will know.
Some of our favourite feedback – received multiple times, in fact.
” I didn’t know deaf people can speak! ” << perplexed >>
“So, you’re saying, deaf pupils in a classroom can actually HEAR?”
” And would you be deaf yourself? ” << looking very puzzled >>
Statistically, 33% per cent of students in a class will have hearing issues on a given day, due to colds, congestion, allergies and/or hearing difficulties.
Teachers typically have a natural voice range of 4 to 12 feet, with volume dropping 50% every time the distance doubles. Soundfields create positive acoustics by lifting and evenly distributing a teacher’s voice in a classroom, for all students to get the best possible sound quality wherever they sit.
Conclusion: the public needs educating that different levels of hearing exist in the catch-all terms ‘deaf’ or ‘hard of hearing’, in the digital-hearing age.
More Reading
- Teacher Assumptions: Kids With Hearing Issues
- School Acoustics – By An Educational Audiologist
- Good Acoustics In Schools Make Learning Easier
- Classroom Technology ‘Has The Children Talking’
- Tips For New Teachers of Young Deaf Children
- The Visiting Teacher Service: Background Details
- Bilingual, Spoken Language At Home And School
- Soundfields For Learning: The Need-To-Know
- Early Learning With Smart-Phones And Tablet PCs
- “A Birthday For Ben” – Teaching Children About Deafness
- Video Captions – The ‘Missing’ Piece In Education
- Preparing Kids For Mainstream Settings
