Educate while you entertain. That’s what Brij Kothari’s Same Language Subtitling (SLS) in songs on TV does. Hum along!
Sometimes, big ideas hit while you’re being a couch potato!
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| Brij Kothari Social Entrepreneur |
In 1996, Brij Kothari sat watching a Spanish movie ‘Women On The Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.’ He wished the movie had Spanish subtitles, so that he could improve his fluency in the language. “Maybe India would become fully literate if we subtitled film song lyrics in the same language,” I said, recalls Kothari.
And that’s how Same Language Subtitling (SLS) popped into his head!
An Instant Hit
That same year, Kothari was offered a faculty position at IIM Ahmedabad in the Ravi J. Matthai Centre for Educational Innovation. He began to test his idea of SLS by showing songs with and without subtitling in villages, slums, railway stations and bus stands in and around Ahmedabad.
“The verdict was soon clear: 90 per cent of the viewers preferred film songs with SLS,” says Kothari.
For literates, SLS offered the chance to learn the lyrics and sing along, enhancing. the entertainment value.
However, Kothari was very clear who his real target audience was: for the early-literates. More specifically, the 300 million + chunk of the population that can recognise a few letters of the alphabet, but who cannot read, say, a newspaper headline. SLS gave them a chance to read better without even realising it! Not surprisingly, SLS was soon in demand even with the illiterates, who decided it was a boon for both them and their children.
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The Next Step
Kothari next conducted a controlled study in a municipal school in Ahmedabad. Children were randomly assigned to three groups. Group One got to watch film songs with SLS. Group Two saw the same songs without SLS, and Group Three was shown no songs at all. . “We found that all else being equal, the group that saw film songs with SLS improved their reading skills much faster,” says Brij.
| Why songs? 1) SLS on songs offers every viewer an opportunity to sing along like in Karaoke and know the song lyrics 2) Songs offer a non-threatening and relaxed context in which an early-literate person’s reading skills get practiced. The answer to the reading challenge is always there in the audio, always creating even in a weak reader the feeling of success. 3) In songs, the lyrics are repeated and can be anticipated. Both these factors make it easier for an early literate to read along. |
In 1999, Kothari set out to find out the impact of SLS on adults. He wrote to all the Doordarshan Kendras but got disheartening responses which said SLS would ‘spoil’ the film songs on TV. “After much persuasion we were able to add SLS to a Gujarati film song programme on DDK, Ahmedabad called Chitrageet for one year,” says Kothari. “The impact was impressive, and consistent: adults who saw our SLS programmes regularly improved their reading skills; others remained at the same level. DDK Ahmedabad also received many letters appreciating its literacy efforts through SLS.”
Spotting opportunity
A lot of people today have access to TV and watch film songs in their own language, either as part of movies or song-based programmes. When these film songs are shown with SLS, with every word highlighted in perfect timing with the songs, anyone who has some alphabetic knowledge tries to read along. “And here’s where the science is important — several eye-tracking studies have shown that reading engagement becomes automatic and inescapable. This then strengthens text-sound associations that are typically weak in an early reader,” explains Kothari.
Once SLS on film songs becomes established, Kothari hopes to explore other genres. “We don’t want to overdo SLS on every kind of programme as there might be viewer backlash. On songs, viewers have a reason to want SLS. For instance, English films’ dialogue is already subtitled in English by private channels. This will do wonders for English language learning in the country. Here too, viewers have a reason to want SLS — be able to follow accents,” he explains.
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Dear Reader: Does Brij Kothari’s idea intrigue you? We’ll tell you more about the man and his sterling efforts in the next issue. Meanwhile, if you’d like to connect with him, please email dare@cybermedia.co.in with Brij Kothari in the subject line
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