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| LATEST
NEWS |
11th
January 2010 / Times of India / Ahmedabad Edition
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Watch Chitrahaar, improve language!
IIM-A Prof Uses Subtitles On Popular Programmes To Promote
Literacy
Ahmedabad: Remember the days of Chitrahaar and Rangoli when
you sat glued to good ol’ Doordarshan two days a week
watching Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha singing in a tulip garden
of Holland? For most rural audiences, these 30 minutes —
their only connect with Bollywood — has now become a tryst
with literacy.
A professor in Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A)
noticed this and worked to transform this into a tool for promoting
literacy levels among children and adults. And, it has worked.
Professor Brij Kothari’s research on Same Language Subtitles
(SLS) showed how Bollywood music programmes on DD like Rangoli,
Chitrahaar and Chitrageet helped bridge the gap between the
education system and potential readers. The study shows how
exposure to SLS more than doubled the percentage of children
who became good readers and halved the number of children who
remained illiterate.
Kothari said, “The idea occurred to me when I was watching
a Spanish film with friends as a PhD student at the Cornell
University in New York. The subtitles were in English and we
discussed that if the subtitles were in Spanish it would have
helped me learn the language faster. Soon after I finished the
course and came to IIM-A, I started working on this project.”
The pilot test of the research was done in Gujarat when a controlled
experiment with primary schoolchildren from disadvantaged backgrounds,
by creating SLS content for an existing weekly 30-minute programme
of Gujarati film songs — Chitrageet. “Gujarat became
the first site in the world where SLS was implemented expressly
to promote mass literacy in the first language,” said
Kothari.
‘Chitrageet, Rangoli helped increase literacy’
IIM-A Prof Surveys Impact Of Same Language Sub-titling
On Literacy Rate
Ahmedabad: Literacy rate in the country has been increasing
with every passing survey. Contributing to the same is an experimental
project by a professor of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
(IIM-A).
Prof Brij Kothari has been working on the concept of Same Language
Sub-titling for almost 13 years and documenting how it is helping
increase literacy rates in the country. Kothari presented a
paper explaining the research and its findings during the first
day of Doctoral Colloquium held on Friday at IIM-A.
What started with weekly 30-minute programme of Gujarati film
songs — Chitrageet — and then graduated to Rangoli
on Doordarshan, now is being implemented in Telugu, Bengali,
Kannada, Tamil, Marathi and Punjabi to increase its reach. “When
we interacted with our sample families, we came up with interesting
points. Some found it good for increasing reading speed, learning
to read from scratch, learning the songs to be sung elsewhere,
for better understanding and many such reasons. It so turned
out that SLS had become very popular among the deaf in the sample,”
said Kothari.
HISTORY OF SLS
1999 | Launched in Gujarat
2002 | Launched in Rajasthan, MP, UP, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttaranchal,
Delhi (in Hindi)
2006 | Started in Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Tamil, Marathi,
Punjabi and Gujarati languages
POSITIVE EFFECT
Exposure to SLS more than doubled the percentage of children
who became good readers and halved the percentage of children
who remained illiterate.
Over 90% of viewers said SLS enhances the entertainment value
of songbased programmes on TV
The impact of SLS is strongest when reading skills picked up
in class are inevitably and concurrently practised at home.
This is giving regular reading practice to at least 200 million
people in their native language
SLS has been implemented on 10 existing film song programmes,
including regional languages
Prasar Bharati has permitted SLS on several Doordarshan programmes.
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