Instrumentos utilizados para el análisis de la confiabilidad y la validez de la

This theme collectively involves views on the advantages of Dikte for students with DHI. Dikte enabled the students to test their hearing skills, improved their academic skills in comprehension, reading, listening, focus and studying.

Reportedly, Dikte helped create a link between transcription of the teacher’s words and self- testing of student hearing skills. Since the transcriptions of the speeches in text format occurred simultaneously, Dikte provided an opportunity for students to assess their hearing skills by comparing what they heard with the live transcriptions on the board. In relation to this, student 2 commented that “My teacher’s words were on the board word by word, I was trying to test my hearing and lip reading skills by looking at the board.” Several teacher comments supported this. For example, teacher 10 stated that “ I remember that students were checking whether they have heard correctly by sometimes reading my lips and looking at Dikte transcriptions on the board,” and teacher 13 mentioned When my students saw the written format of what I said on the board, they began criticising themselves about whether they had heard things correctly, so they were able to check their hearing skills.” Lastly Teacher 15 commented “they [the students] were watching the words appearing on the board and checking if they have heard right by comparing my words with Dikte transcriptions”.

According to the observation notes, there were many occasions where the students were trying to test their hearing ability. After a couple of weeks of Dikte use and with their teachers’ encouragement through prompted questions such as “please check [by looking at the board to Dikte transcriptions] if you can understand what I am going to say”, or “can you please pay attention to the words appearing on the board as I speak?”, students who had better hearing and speaking skills seemed to be more

enthusiastic in testing their hearing skills.

Dikte was also effective in improving students’ comprehension. Student 10 reported that Dikte hand-outs were easier to understand, saying “The hand outs with pictures were nice because I was able to understand them better. For example, in science class, the teacher gave us a hand out of human body parts, it was easier to understand than our textbook.” Another student detailed an example of Dikte usage and how he understood the topic better by explaining “It was good like when my science teacher

said some specific words into microphone [Dikte], I was able to see them [written on the board] and understood better. I am not very familiar with scientific words like human bones or organs, I was able to see their pictures and words [written formats] together, I know I understood better like this” (Student 9). Student 4 reported “One of my teachers showed us a caricature program. He spoke and we saw the words [written] in boxes, it was fun and easy to understand [referring to conversations in caricature program].” Teacher 9 stated “after distributing Dikte documents mostly in text format, I told the students to study them at home. What I observed was that they understood the covered topics better.” Similarly, teacher 10 reported “I think it (Dikte) has supported their [students’] comprehension skills because they were remembering pictures and related texts well after a couple of days.”

Along the same lines, some of other comments were “I have to mention that my students

demonstrated a good understanding of classroom topics” (Teacher 3) and “When they [the students] saw written texts of my speech, I could see from their faces that they were understanding well, because I have years of teaching experience and I know if they were learning or not” (Teacher 11). A different approach to improving the comprehension skills of students was highlighted by teacher 8 in the comment “If we use Dikte and FM system [together] any longer, the students will be able to hear and read speech over and over, and I think they may eventually develop better comprehension abilities.” Teacher 5 has expressed similar views “My students were able to hear as much as they could, and see the written formats of the topics. I also showed the pictures of these topics. When I delivered my teaching in this way with Dikte, I figured out that the students’ comprehension skills were strengthened. I may not be able to scientifically prove it, but I can see it when I look at the answers that they give to the questions in quizzes as well as their increased level of participation in the class”.

The data from interviews with teachers and students suggested that Dikte materials in text and audio formats enabled the students to learn with the flexibility of time and location. Teacher 1 pointed out that “Our students need to repeat a lot; they may not well learn or understand the topics at first because of their hearing loss. I mean, in class they usually miss a lot of information, so they need to work more than their hearing peers. Dikte materials can be an extra support and help in this regard.” The possibility of repeating learning topics has been emphasised by teachers 13 and 7 as well, who

respectively stated “I really liked to give Dikte print outs. I have to say that it has to be an obligation to give written texts of what is covered in the classroom, because our students need to read and read again to understand the topics and vocabularies, it takes time for them”, “I especially liked the concept of enabling the students to work by themselves at home [referring to Dikte materials] and study the topics covered in the classroom.” Also, teacher 4 mentioned the support of Dikte sound files for studying topics: “Recording our voices are effective for producing classroom notes [in sound format]. Especially in science education the students may need to study the same topics over and over, so Dikte has

Dikte print outs again if I did not understand topics” and “A couple of times I have listened the previous lesson recordings, … it was good to repeat the topics” (Student 6 and 7) (see figure H below).

Figure H. Dikte feature listening back the recorded/transcribed speeches.

This figure shows how Dikte enabled students to listen back to the recorded/transcribed speeches. The yellow colour enabled students to track speech and transcript.

The data highlighted that Dikte sound files supported the listening skills of students in different circumstances which included listening to natural speech, and being more familiar with their teachers’ individual accents, voices and pronunciation varieties. Principal B suggested that if the students listened to Dikte sound files, they would become familiar with their teachers’ voices, while Principal C pointed out that Dikte notes had the potential to improve students’ listening skills, because they could listen to their teachers’ voices, accents and speaking/pronouncing styles. The importance of listening to natural speech has also been discussed as “students need to listen to natural speech regularly, because they need to learn basic communication and sentences, so Dikte sound recordings have supported that need” (Teacher 14). Teacher 10 also supported this view “Dikte sound files are important because our students have to practice listening and speaking exercises a lot. They have to, so they can practice sound files at home, or they can access to them anywhere”.

In addition to the reported benefits, the ability to edit the text output of Dikte in different colours and characters as well as having live transcriptions of the speech encouraged the students to pay more attention to, and concentrate on the learning. As one of the interviewer emphasised: “When I was using Dikte, the students were paying more attention to what I was saying, … it [Dikte] has encouraged them to pay more attention to me” (Teacher 6). In the same respect, teacher 9 suggested that “I want to discuss the adjustable feature of Dikte texts, … I used different characters, colours, etc. So, they [the students] were paying more attention to the learning topics.” Additionally, regarding the increased

concentration of students, the teachers reported that “When Dikte helped me to combine sound and texts, students’ concentration skills were much better” (Teacher 2), “They [the students] were more focused on me and were better following the learning topics” (Teacher 15) “I can definitely say that their [the students’] concentration was improved” (Teacher 7).

Dikte transcriptions were reported to provide emotional relief to students as the students could simultaneously see the spoken words on board and obtain related printouts at the end of class, which saved them from the stress of taking detailed lecture notes. This was highlighted in the following student comments: “I was just listening to [the teacher], I did not have to take notes, so I was relaxed” (Student 7) and “I was given Dikte notes after the classes, it was very helpful, because I was spending lots of time for note taking and having difficulties on understanding. I was more relaxed [during the lecture] and just listened to the teacher” (Student 3). Moreover, interviewed teachers stated that “They [the students] were very relaxed, just sat down and receive teachings in print outs”(Teacher 10) and “My students told me several times that they were relieved when they saw [my words] on the board in text” (Teacher 13). And, lastly, teacher 7 explained that “I think the students were sometimes very relaxed because they were provided the written documents and sound files at the end of the class.”

Dikte implementation in the classrooms created an interesting environment for learning, whereby the students were excited to experience novel software, much different from the overused traditional methods. Most interviewees emphasised that combining audio and visual teaching components excited the students. The following comments detail this: “It is a different strategy or technique. When my students first saw that my speech was being written on the board while I was lecturing, they got very excited” (Teacher 15), “I first showed a picture than explained the topics and Dikte wrote everything near the picture, the students were very excited to see such a program” (Teacher 10). Along the same lines, teacher 14 pointed out that “It was very good for them [the students] to be able to see what was spoken on the board in text, they got very excited at the beginning.” Another teacher also stated “They [the students] showed great excitement when they were trying to hear my speech and saw them written on the board” (Teacher 3). Only one student reported excitement: “My teacher opened a Turkish map on the computer, talked into the microphone and city names were written (in text) on the map. We got quite excited” (Student 4).