Media

HKU's Experts Call For Voice Protection Education

22 Nov 2005

 

In the light of education reform in recent years, working pressure faced by the teaching professionals has been increased tremendously. In a recent survey conducted by the Hong Kong Professional Teachers' Union, more than 30% of respondents have exhausted from their heavy workload, and some even have suffered from different kinds of health problems, like depression and headache. However, unlike the aforementioned, voice problem, which is also widely common among teaching professionals in Hong Kong, seems to have less serious attentions than it deserves.

The research project conducted by Dr Edwin Yiu, Dr Karen Chan and Dr Estella Ma of the Voice Research Lab and Centre for Communication Disorders, both of which belong to the Faculty of Education of The University of Hong Kong, is an attempt to explore the prevalence and starting time of voice problems among teaching professionals and the impact of voice disorder on their daily life.

From 1998 to 2004, questionnaires were administered to 208 final year students at HKU, and each teacher was followed up annually for 4 consecutive years. The results showed that the voice condition has significantly worsened after 3 years of teaching, with 30.8% and 32.7% of teachers have voice problems after the first and second year, and reaching 36.5% after the third year. Also, the percentage of teachers needed days off work because of voice problem has increased from 17.3% after the first year to 21.2% after the second year. As regards the impact of voice disorder on daily life, teachers have found that their job performance has been mostly affected, when comparing to other domains of life.

Based on the above findings, the research has projected that around 22,000, about one third of the total teaching population, have voice problems in Hong Kong, which results in total loss of 8,380 working days and HK$6.7 million of salary each year.

Given such a great impact that voice problems might cause to the overall productivity, Dr Yiu has believed that it is a high time to launch voice protection education for teaching professionals in Hong Kong, “Our findings showed that up to 89% of the teaching professionals expressed that they would consider attending educational programme to improve their voice use. Some universities in UK already offer such kind of programme as compulsory courses while Singapore offers it in the postgraduate diploma programme in education. Hong Kong should catch up in developing this curriculum.”

HKU's Voice Research Lab and Centre for Communication Disorders is currently launching a Green Voice Project, which is divided into three stages of development. The research project is its stage-one activity, followed by the development of a voice problem prevention protocol for Hong Kong teachers and the establishment of a support centre for teachers with voice problem at the later stages. The Faculty of Education has already launched voice protection education to both of student teachers and teachers at the early days of career.

In addition to the educational programme, Dr Chan, who is also a speech therapist, lastly reminded that good habits are also the effective preventive measures, particularly for those newly-trained teachers: “Teachers should avoid throat clearing and drink more water. A one-minute rest would be the best for every 30-45 minute of speaking. Teachers should also try to speak with an open mouth when teaching or presenting.”

The research project was funded by a grant from the In-Service Teacher Education Programme (INSTEP), The University of Hong Kong.

For media enquiries, please contact Elsie Leung of HKU's External Relations Office (tel: 2859 2600).

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Dr Edwin Yiu PhD, Head of Division of Speech & Hearing Science and Associate Dean of Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong
Dr Karen Chan PhD, Post-Doctoral Fellow, Division of Speech & Hearing Science, The University of Hong Kong (tel: 2859 0564; cell: 9322 7105; email: karencmk@hkusua.hku.hk)