{"id":3207,"date":"2025-07-17T14:32:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T06:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cslds.org\/v5\/?p=3207"},"modified":"2026-08-19T14:23:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T06:23:46","slug":"real-time-captioning-trial-scheme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cslds.org\/v5\/real-time-captioning-trial-scheme\/","title":{"rendered":"Real-time Captioning Trial Scheme"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Real-time Captioning Trial Scheme<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Objective<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By using different kinds of real-time captioning tools in the market, we aim to enhance the learning accessibility of students with different types of Special Education Needs (SEN), and reduce their barriers to classroom participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What is real-time captioning?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Real-time captions is a synchronous textual representation of the audio within media , which is generated by the engine through automatic speech recognition. This kind of system can enhance information accessibility of people with hearing impairment or people who experience difficulties in perceiving speech information in class, no matter in a face-to-face lecture or an online lesson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why captions?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the academic year 2020-21, with the support of TDLEG, The Centre for Sign Linguistics & Deaf Studies (CSLDS) has conducted a 1-year pilot project to investigate whether real-time captioning is beneficial to students with special education needs. Six students with different kinds of special needs participated in the trial of real-time captioning in the lessons they chose and gave feedback on the service provided after trials. According to the feedback received, all of them found the system helpful in enhancing learning accessibility in class though the captions produced were not 100% correct. The results showed that not only students with hearing impairment (especially those with mild to moderate hearing loss), but also students with other types of SEN such as students with attention deficit benefitted from the real-time captioning service in the lecture. Students replied that they would like to continue using this service in the future and recommend other students with similar special educational needs to try using the system in the lessons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Benefits of real-time captions:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • Enable students to track back information which they have missed in the real time learning process.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Improved classroom engagement due to reduced information loss during the lessons, resulting in better online and offline classroom experience.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Improved information retention and better concentration of students in class when both visual (captions) and oral mode of instructions are provided.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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    Limitations of real-time captions:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    • Accuracy of real-time captions done by stenographers can reach almost 100% accuracy, but it is costly and hard to find service providers locally.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Real-time captions provided in the service are generated through automatic speech recognition, which is much cheaper, but no 100% accuracy can be expected.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Mainly acts as a supporting tool for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. However, other supporting services including sign language interpretation and note-taking service are still necessary for students with severe to profound hearing impairment, to reduce information loss in the classrooms.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
    • Each real-time captioning tool\/ mobile application has its limitations (e.g. language use, display method, control system, etc.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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      How to get captioning support for your lessons?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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      There are different methods of captioning used for lessons with different modes of delivery: face-to-face or online lessons (ZOOM).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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      1) Online lessons<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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      Auto-captioning as a built-in function can be found in most of the online meeting applications such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and ZOOM and the operation is simple. As ZOOM is a popular online teaching system. The procedure to switch on the auto-captioning function of ZOOM is shown in the short video below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n