I always think that simple ideas can change the world: this one seems to me one of those. It seems to me so simple that I could not believe it was not implemented before. In short the idea is to use a karaoke subtitling on popular movies and song and make this available on mass media content. In this way, illiterate people can start associating the pronunciation of words with the written form.
Same-Language Subtitling:
My organization, PlanetRead, works in Mumbai and Pondicherry, India. We have developed a “Same-Language Subtitling” (SLS) methodology, which provides automatic reading practice to individuals who are excluded from the traditional educational system, or whose literacy needs are otherwise not being met. This is an educational program rooted in mass media that demonstrates how a specific literacy intervention can yield outstanding, measurable results, while complementing other formal and non-formal learning initiatives of the government, private sector, and civil society. We are fortunate to have just been selected as a Google Foundation grantee.More than 500 million people in India have access to TV and 40 percent of these viewers have low literacy skills and are poor. Through PlanetRead’s approach, over 200 million early-literates in India are getting weekly reading practice from Same Language Subtitling (SLS) using TV. The cost of SLS? Every U.S. dollar covers regular reading for 10,000 people – for a year.
I hit upon this idea in 1996 through a most ordinary personal experience. While taking a break from dissertation writing at Cornell University, I was watching a Spanish film with friends to improve my Spanish. The Spanish movie had English subtitles, and I remember commenting that I wished it came with Spanish subtitles, if only to help us grasp the Spanish dialogue better. I then thought, ‘And if they just put Hindi subtitles on Bollywood songs in Hindi, India would become literate.’ That idea became an obsession. It was so simple, intuitively obvious, and scalable in its potential to help hundreds of millions of people read — not just in India, but globally. So you can see how it works, we’ve uploaded some folk songs using SLS into Google Video.
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My Name is Philip Wagner. I bought two DVDs from BookBox In September of 2006. They are very impressive. My avocation is similar to your goal of using subtitles to educate illiterates. I use movies, slow down the actors’ voices and syncronizxe each spoken word with each highlighted word. I have finished two movies each about twenty-five minutes long. In the movies I have colorized the person speaking while the the other actors remain in black and white. This rivets the attention of the movie watcher to the words being highlighted. I will send you a demo if you would Like to have it. Sincerely, Philip Wagner 7601 Arthurs Road Fort Pierce, Fl 34951 Phone: 772-595-0993
Philip H. Wagner
United States
To Philip Wagner,
Can you possibly post here your work experience on doing SLS and a background on what you really do? I am interested on this new thing coming up and you might want to be a partner on a business I’m up with. I won’t be able to contact you soon so it’ll help if you just post it here. Thanks.
I am honored that you might consider me as a business
affiliate, please tell me more.
I was a teacher for fifteen years and a health
inspector for fifteen years in Fort Pierce, Florida.
My degree is in Education with a major in Biology and
a minor in French. I taught two years in Nigeria,
Africa and lived for a year in Paris and eight months
in Holland. My knowledge of the world is partly from
visiting about twenty countries. and having married
two ladies from foreign countries. Visiting their
families taught me much.
The only SLS tutoring I have done was two years at an
elementary school in Fort Pierce.
My wife and I are retired which allows me to put much
time into making the videos.
My experiences with seeing subtitling in different
languages have allowed me to know there value for
education.
My exploration on the web to find people with these
similar interests led me to a job request by a
gentleman asking for work in electronics and stating
he lived in Pondicherry. If I remember correctly he
worked for an outsourcing company, but I’m not sure.
My use of karaoke songs for education led me to your
use of them in India.
My two years use of karaoke took place while tutoring
reading to elementary students. The old jazz (big
band) ballads of the 1940s and 1950s I liked best, and
the words were often sung slowly so students could
have more time to read the subtitling. But to cover
other students’ tastes I produced the karaoke programs
in american country music and in rock ‘n roll. There
was no singing of the karaoke songs because I decided
to do it that way. Students
have a difficult time learning to pronounce words
correctly when someone sings the songs. Some of them
are paying more attention to the singing and less
attention to the subtitling. What I do is play the
music of the songs in the background and say (record)
each subtitled word to the rhythym of the song. They
can still sing along by themselves if they know the
song while paying close attention to the subtitled
words.
If you know of a job where I can use SLS please let me
know. I will go to any country which has a similar
climate as Florida.
Sincerely, Philip