Correlation of Teacher's Voice Level with the Speech Comprehension and Fatigue Degree of Teachers

Abstract

Since the teacher's voice greatly affects the student's learning effect, accurate voice delivery must be important for the student's academic improvement. Also, voice level of teachers is closely correlated with both of teacher's fatigue and speech comprehension of students. The present study aims to investigate the appropriate voice level of teachers which could optimize the two other factors. In order to this, field acoustic measurements and questionnaire survey were accomplished in 5 classrooms in a Korean elementary school. The subjects consist of 5 teachers and 115 students. Teacher's voice levels were classified into five stages from low level (55 dB) to high level (73 dB). Also, Teacher's voice levels were measured for 15 minutes to confirm the correct level of speech during the class. As a result, it was found that the teacher's fatigue and speech comprehension are low when low level of vocalization was given. On the other hand, when high level of vocalization was given, teacher's fatigue was increased significantly while speech comprehension of students was increased. concerning the medium (62-64 dB) voice level, it was revealed that 81.8% of the satisfaction was acquired for speech comprehension with just one of five teachers feeling tired. Therefore, it can be suggested that 63 dB could be an appropriate voice level of teachers in classroom.