Cantonese speech intelligibility tests in two Hong Kong primary school classrooms

Abstract

Speech transmission is a very important issue especially in early childhood education during which the children learn languages and pronunciations. There are evidences that the acoustical performance of a classroom can have significant impact on the learning progress and effectiveness of the children. The effect is not only observed in language subjects, but also in the numeracy related subjects. In this study, on-site speech intelligibility tests are conducted using newly developed phonetically balanced (in Cantonese) Chinese character lists suitable for the Year 5 Hong Kong primary school children (10–11 years old) in two classrooms. A trained speaker is recruited to speak out the characters. The classroom acoustical properties are also measured, but in the absence of the pupils because of statutory regulation. The sound of each Cantonese character in general consists of an initial consonant, a vowel, a final consonant, and a tone. A preliminary observation is that there is higher probability for the pu...