Why aren’t students hearing their teachers? For more than 20 years, research has demonstrated that hearing difficulties in the classroom are commonplace and poor academic progress is the result.
1.) Inferior Classroom Acoustics: Poor acoustics and audio reverberation make it difficult to understand speech.
2.) Persistent Noise: Construction, HVAC, computers, projectors, and street noise compete with instruction.
3.) Health Issues: Younger students are prone to ear infections, fluid in their ears, allergies and colds.
4.) Cognitive Development: Young children are too inexperienced to fill in missed words.
5.) Simple Laws of Physics: Students in the back of the classroom miss 30% of oral instructions.
6.) Poor Voice Projection: Teachers often face away from the class (e.g., to write on a whiteboard), which hinders hearing.
7.) Soft Voices: Many excellent teachers go unheard due to their naturally soft voices.
8.) Teenage Hearing Loss: 22% of high school students exhibit high frequency range hearing loss.
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