Voice Characteristics of Prospective and Professional Teachers

Abstract

Voice plays a major role in speech and hence in communication. A large section of our population vocalizes for long period of time to earn their livelihood. Individuals whose professional role and employment is dependent on effective and eflicient use of voice are termed as professional voice users. This group includes teachers, actors, politicians, radio announcers etc. Teachers constitute a major group of professional voice users. It has generally has been observed that teacher’s voice problems begin after several years of work. So the present study attempted to compare the acoustic and perceptual characteristics of voice of prospective and professional teachers. Phonation samples of (Vowel/a/) in J0 professional and 10 prospective teachers were audio recorded and subjected to MD VP analysis to extract 33 acoustic parameters. Three postgraduate students judged the voice samples for pitch and quality.