Panasonic WX-LA20 User manual

Voicing Concern About Noisy
Classrooms (Summary)
Karen L. Anderson
Association for Supervision and Curriculum
Development, pp. 77-79 April, 2001
Background noise and poor acoustics can lead to voice problems for teachers
and create unhealthy learning environments; however, solutions such as sound-
field amplification can help remedy the problems.
Teachers talk on average of 6.3 hours per school day. During most of this time
teachers must constantly raise their vocal volume to compete with background
noise. This vocal strain leads to teacher absenteeism which in turn leads to
financial implications of hiring substitute teachers.
Since the majority of classroom education is auditory, it is vitally important that
children receive the information clearly. Multiple studies show differences in both
performance and behavior between students working in quiet conditions and
students working in noisy conditions. Poor listening conditions not only
lead to masked properties of speech but also restlessness, decreased attention
span, and inappropriate classroom behavior. Additionally, overall stress levels
increase and group discussions become ineffective because students are not
able to hear the teacher or each other.
Students who have hearing problems are even more at risk. 30 – 43% of
elementary students have minimal degrees of hearing impairment and 72% of
special education students experienced some degree of hearing deficit. An
enormous amount of money is spent on hearing technology and learning
specialists for these students when research shows that these students could
have been learning in a regular classroom if the acoustic conditions had been
better.
Sound-field amplification systems contribute to a faster learning rate with less
repetition of information. Also, teachers do not have to raise their voice to
compete with interfering noise. One local agency that implemented sound-field
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amplification found after five years of use that there was a 40% reduction of
students in learning disability programs.
Effective use of sound-field amplification assumes that other classroom
acoustical conditions are satisfactory including reverberation and background
noise. The General Accounting Office documented acoustics as the top
environmental issue needed to be addressed in schools. Acoustic plans currently
account for less than 1% of the total budget. Sound-field amplification systems
are user-friendly, inexpensive, and provide high instructional benefit.
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