Teaching Language Through Hearing Aids

V. Praveena
(MA English)
praveenasaki16@gmail.com
Dr. Avinash M
(Assistant Professor)
and
Dorris Lourdes R
Research Scholar
Department of English
Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology,
Kamaraj Nagar,
Semmencheri, Chennai

Abstract
Young people are very much fond of advancement. They get bored of learning through normal chalk and talk method. They look for new things to explore. To refresh those minds the teaching methodologies should be advanced. So that it can create curiosity for learning. This paper is written in order to provide them those excitements to learn language using audio aids. The paper also deals with the need for learning through technology, how to implement those technologies, basic proper training for teachers to make lectures using this method and also the advantages and disadvantages of using these technologies. It also contains a survey which details with the need for the change in language teaching methodologies by both learners and the students.

Keywords: technology, hearing aids, recorder, cassettes, advancement

Introduction
In today's world, people realize the importance and value of learning a language. So, every teacher wishes their students to be excelled in at least two or more languages. Because of this, the strength of the students in the schools or colleges are growing higher and higher each year. Teachers find it difficult in handling such a huge classroom. Due to this higher strength, the teachers shout and get tired easily. Also, at times the last benchers are not be able to hear what the teacher is teaching and this affects their learning. The teachers are burdened with too many classrooms to handle continuously without free hours. This makes the teachers stand and shout for the whole day. This paper is written on considering all these problems and helping the teachers and students to learn languages in a better way using audio aids. In other words, the learning can take place through audio lingual method. This paper gives tips on how the teachers can use effective ways to teach language through hearing aids and how it helps both the learners and teachers to improve their skills in learning a language effectively and accurately.

“The teacher in a naturalistic set up is only setter of the stage, a supplier of material and opportunities, a provider of an ideal environment; a creator of conditions, under which natural development takes, place.” - (Ross)

What is learning through hearing aid?

Every course has some course material which is prescribed by the curriculum. The teachers,instead of teaching a language through chalk and talk method, they can take the class to the next level by teaching through technology. After all, advancement is all we need in everything. Why not use those advanced technology in teaching a language? The teacher can prepare for lectures as usual, but rather using board, a teacher can record her/his own lectures and then make the students hear it by taking the students to the language lab. By this way the learners will be very much excited to learn a language and his focus cannot be distracted. Through this method, even a huge number of students can be handled with ease. Every student can learn without any form of distraction.

Implementing teaching through technology

Implementing learning through technology is not a big issue and it can be implemented with ease. The teacher should record her lectures using voice recorder, cassettes, and that should be stored in pen drive or hard disk or CDs. Then, on the next day in class, the teacher can give a gist of what the learners are going to learn, and how they are going to learn. This creates curiosity among the students.

Then the teacher has to get proper permission from the language lab and has to take the students to the lab. The teacher has to give proper instructions on how to handle the hearing equipment and should make sure that the students properly follow it. Then the teacher has to connect the recording device to the admin computer so that the audio when it is played reflects on the other primary computers which functions under it. Now the students are allowed to use the headphones to hear the lectures. During the lectures if they have any doubts, they are allowed to note it down and rectify them once the lectures get completed. Later, all the records will be stored in the audio library, and at the end of the year one can have a bunch of records, and it can be saved and used later whenever needed.

Review of literature

Pike (1997) identifies some significant reasons for carefully designing and using audio aids: motivating the learner, attracting and maintaining the learner’s attention, reinforcing the main ideas of the lesson, illustrating and supporting the spoken literature, minimizing misunderstanding of the learner, increasing retention, adding a touch of realism, saving both class time and expenses, helping the teacher to communicate more dearly and quickly so that the learner can understand the content clearly and easily, and helping the teacher clarify the thinking and provide a logical path for communication.

The new era makes the educationists realize that, in education ‘learning’ is now important than ‘teaching’. The former is concerned with pupils whereas the latter is concerned with pupils and teachers. The traditional concept of teacher as the only source of knowledge has been changed due to the advancement of science and technology. The traditional classroom with one teacher teaching students was mainly one way of communication. It is no longer effective in modern times due to dynamic nature of society. The change should be brought in teaching learning situation. There is a need to introduce modern teaching learning process through improved means of educational technology (Kumar, 2004).

Teaching methods in recent times have been moved from predominantly teacher oriented and controlled approach to student interactive system. Such a system requires a number of changes in the instructional procedure and the materials used for effective teaching. In a formal education system, the use of audio-visual aids is useful for the classroom teaching. Undoubtedly, the instructional and pedagogical skills of the teacher, and the readiness of the students play significant role to make the classroom teaching effective. In the present period of educational technology, teacher should not depend upon any single method of teaching (Kaur, 2010).

Ema and Ajayi (2004) opined that the application of such technological aids can be facilitated only when teachers understand its applicability and acquire the needed skills for the use of intricate mechanical equipment. Without the knowledgeable teacher, instructional materials cannot create change and progress in the teaching learning process. It begins to make impact only when the teacher begins to make use of it and allows it to make over its values. Therefore teachers have to be properly motivated and made interested in the use of such materials. Teachers have to be trained and oriented in the adequate use and maintenance of the materials. It is often found that these devices or media have been hurriedly introduced and used without sufficient planning and forethought.

The audio-visual aid and invention of phonography is another application of technology in education. Other methods of recording and reproducing sound were also invented-such as optical recording of sound on the film and the magnetic recording of sound on magnetic tapes and cassettes. The teacher can use them very effectively in the teaching of language, social studies and music. The invention of the camera and photographs enabled the teacher to use photographs as aids in teaching. All these are called visual aids to instruction because the teacher uses in the classroom as teaching aids to give common visual experiences to the students (Mohanty, 2004).

Training for the teachers

The basic course should focus on both audio-oral and spelling, and reading skills. The teachers are trained to focus on linguistics and phonetics, so that the learner can get the accurate pronunciation. In the book 'Language laboratory learning' written by Fernand L. Mary, the author mentions certain specific ways in teaching the French language using audio aids. He says, the training should include acquisition of audio forms, methods for teaching pronunciation, audio oral work in class, audio oral review, audio oral teaching, spelling reading works, spelling reading review and some specialized courses in literature, phonetics and diction, stylistics, specifications of equipment, specifications of equipment used by students etc., (Fernand L. Mary) The same kind of training should be given to teachers for English language teaching.

Survey for the need of audio lectures

To find out the need for the change in learning methods, a survey was taken. The researcher conducted a survey in an advanced way. A set of four questions was created with the multiple-choice questions, using google forms and the link was circulated among literature students and teachers to know their interest towards this new advanced way of learning. As the paper is based on language learning, only students and teachers who belong to language and literature was considered. By that survey, we can understand that over 85% of the students and teachers are welcoming this new method of learning. Most of the students are very much interested in learning through these methods. They wish that it would be helpful if it came in to use. Teachers also felt worthy on teaching through this way and commented that through this method they can also be benefited, also they feel that it serves as an update in the field of education. Also commented that through this method they can also learn certain pronunciations accurately. With this survey one can understand how it will be useful for the young generation. The survey graphs are attached below,

Benefits of using audio aids in classroom

Disadvantages

Conclusion

Craving for something new, is the mentality of the students. Using audio aid not only makes them excited but also make them to stay focused and makes the materials ever available. This also helps the absentee students to get the lectures without attending the classes. It is also to be noted that there are a few students who used to study only before the day of their exams. May be, because of lack of notes and study materials, many students fail. Naturally the results go down. But now through this method, the students can learn whenever they want and there is no need to go behind staffs for every other thing. It is beneficial, both for the students and the teachers. And when something is heard, it naturally gets into one’s mind and that will be stored forever. So students also will do the exams well and naturally their scores and learning capacity grows higher. When students do well the literacy rate also get increased. This is also helpful to grow the literacy rate of the country. Through this method, not only the curiosity of learning can be developed but it also helps the students to get better results. At the same way it helps the teachers to save their energy and they can also look on to their health.

References

“Audiovisual education” Wikipedia, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiovisual_education.
“Need of Teaching Aids” Institute of International teachers training, www.google.com/amp/s/internationalteacherstraining.com/blog/need-of-teaching-aids/amp/
“The use of Audio aids in EFL class at the tertiary level – a plus or minus?” Grin, Grin Publishing gmbh, www.google.com/amp/s/internationalteacherstraining.com/blog/need-of-teaching-aids/amp/.
Field, J. (2008). Listening in the language classroom. Press.Google Scholar
Gardner, H. (2000). Can technology exploit our many ways of knowing? In D. T. Gordon (Ed.), The digital classroom: How technology is changing the way we teach and learn (pp. 32–35). Cambridge, MA: President and Fellows of Harvard College
Gilmore, A. (2004). A comparison of textbook and authentic interaction. ELT Journal, 58, 363-374.
Gnana Gandhi, Mercy (2017). Computer Assisted Language Learning (p.75) ISBN: 978-93-83409-20-4
Gnana Gandhi, S. Mercy. "Teaching English language to engineering students and the problems faced by the language teachers: Solutions through computers." ELT Weekly Journal 3.81 (2011).
Liberty, Mary. “The Disadvantages of Audiovisual Aids in Teaching” The classroom, Leaf group education, www.theclassroom.com/disadvantages-audiovisual-aids-teaching-6717310.html
Prajapati, Vinay. “The Benefits of Using Audio-Visual Aids in Teaching” Techprevue, Tech Prevue, www.google.com/amp/s/www.techprevue.com/audio-visual-aids-benefits-teaching/%3famp.

********************