Influence of classroom acoustics on the vocal behavior of teachers

Abstract

Erroneous vocal behavior of teachers and their changes in the voice production due to poor acoustics in classrooms can be investigated through recently developed voice-monitoring devices. These devices are portable analyzers that use a miniature contact-microphone glued to the jugular notch in order to sense the skin acceleration level due to the vibration of the vocal folds. They estimate the Sound Pressure Level (SPL) at a certain distance from the speaker's mouth provided that a preliminary calibration procedure is performed, the fundamental frequency and the time dose. Two different devices are compared in this work: the former is a commercial device, whose phonation sensor is a small accelerometer; the latter, recently developed by the authors, uses an electret condenser microphone to sense the skin acceleration level. SPL and fundamental frequency are estimated over fixed-length frames and the results that refer to a sample of 25 primary school teachers and a university professor are analyzed. The duration of the voice and pause periods is investigated in order to detect the peaks of occurrence and accumulation in different conditions of reverberation. A method for the detection and analysis of the emphatic speech is also proposed.