Teacher wins a crore for losing voice

Occupational hazard: Joyce Walters

Joyce Walters quit after developing vocal cord nodules she says were caused by constantly raising her voice and repeating herself over the din from a children's play area.

The condition means she finds it difficult to speak on the phone for long and suffers hoarseness and sore throat if she has to raise her voice to be heard in noisy bars or parties.

Walters (50) said, "Teaching was my calling, I adored the classroom and miss it so much, but the problems with my voice make it impossible for me to ever go back."

She taught English at the Harlington Adult Education Centre. She said the noise from the play area combined with the fact she had too many students in her class, damaged her voice.

She added, "I even have to think twice about day to day things, like speaking on the phone to my dad in Scotland as my voice is not strong enough to maintain a conversation for any length of time."

She said, "As a result of the noise I often had to repeat myself and raise my voice very significantly while teaching. This was exacerbated as clarity of pronunciation, particularly for English language students at beginner level, is extremely important and students often had to ask me to repeat myself."

Walters said her employers did not do enough to help her. She was asked to teach more students and was not allowed to stop teaching beginners' classes, which she said are more vocally demanding.

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