What Are the Advantages of Audio Teaching Aids?

According to Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences, students learn in a variety of different ways including through listening or auditory input. Some students are better auditory learners than others and may see more academic improvement when audio aids are used in the classroom. Teachers serve students best by instructing to all academic levels in the classroom. With students learning at different paces and through different methods, using audio aids in teaching is one way of achieving engagement and better retention of ideas. Rather than relying solely on speech through direct instruction, teachers can also include listening activities focused around music, noises and interactive listening assignments.

Students might get bored with more traditional methods. Advantages of audio aids is even more apparent in novelty teaching methods. Novelty audio aids can be used in the classroom as an attention-getting strategy and also as a way to increase student involvement. When experiencing something new that engages his senses, a student is more likely to be engaged in the task and to remember the experience and presented information. Using audio in an unexpected way can add novelty to a lesson and potentially spark an academic improvement. Teachers can try beginning a lesson with a song or use recordings of foreign languages when teaching about other cultures. The more unexpected the audio activity is, the more novel that activity is for the students.

To define audio aids, teachers might use a mnemonic device. Using music and mnemonics as audio aids in teaching has also been proven to help students with memorization. Mnemonics are phrases or rhymes that people use to memorize information. For example, the memorable saying, "30 days hath September, April, June and November" is a mnemonic device that helps students remember how many days are in each month of the year. When students learn assigned song lyrics or mnemonic devices, the memorized information stays with them longer and can improve their performance on related subject tests.