Mass literacy can be fun

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Dr. Brij Kothari had an idea. Instead of being satisfied with the thought that Bollywood films served their purpose as a cheap and effective way to entertain the masses, why not put them to work so that they could actually be useful. The result of his idea is Planet Read (thanks for the tip Kiran). Kothari describes his venture on Google’s Blog:

NOW I get it.

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.’

Awesome. I hate Bollywood flicks but I still found myself going through some of the example clips on Planet Read’s website. Shah Rukh’s lip syncing has never sounded so good. I taught myself to read Hindi a few years back but have mostly forgotten. Watching the clips I could actually remember some of the script. The site also contains folks songs in languages such as Telugu.

Here are some other great examples you can learn along to.

If you want to make a donation to Planet Read you can do so here.

25 thoughts on “Mass literacy can be fun”

  1. what a honey of an idea… i’m just tickled to pieces… and just in time to claim a tax refund… as they express happiness back home in देश्, “हम बहुत खुश हुऐ, थैंक यू, कम अगेन”|

  2. Very cool. I’ve been known to do something similar – watch bad action movies with the French subtitles on so that I get practice reading French.

    OK, so I’m a geek 🙂

  3. Isnt Closed captioning kinda doing the same thing !!!..may be we should just introduce captioning in indian tv’s..

    Girish

  5. Please read the paper if you get the chance. To a lapsed scientist like I, it was like re-discovering religion. Here’s a somewhat scary data point from the paper… that functional literacy is waay below the official numbers. They build a case for new and novel methods for literacy promotion.

    This raises the critical question of what is meant by a national literacy rate of 65.4% as declared by the 2001 Census. Since this figure is close enough to the self-reported literacy rate of 68.2% in the ORG-CSR sample, with some liberty, the following preliminary conclusions may be permitted, not so much with an eye for precision but as a perspective on trends. If a demonstrated “ability to decode the simplest of passages were operationalized” as the deªnition of literacy, not necessarily with understanding, then only 10–15% would be fully literate.

    Indeed Girish, the authors cite a study proving the link of CCTV to higher literacy rates in their paper

    Their study found that watching CC television programs with the purpose of developing science concepts resulted in signiªcant vocabulary gains among minority students, as compared with watching the same programs without CC or reading along with an audio recording of the text

    The neat thing is not in the technology, but that they documented the positive impact of their experiment… The rigor of their analysis is very refreshing.. and far exceeds the quality of work that gets reported in popular media (my pet peeve)

    From June 1999 to April 2000, SLS was added to an existing weekly 30-minute program of Gujarati ªlm songs—Chitragee—telecast all over Gujarat state in prime time, by Doordarshan Kendra (DDK),… A two-group experimental design was used, with pre- and post-test. The experimental group (EG) consisting of those early scriptates who claimed to see Chitrageet regularly and the control group (CG) of those early literates who claimed otherwise. The experimental period of exposure to SLS was 6 months, June–December 1999,…

    The results showed significant improvement in the EG versus the CG. The delta between the syllable recognition for the EG pre- and post- the experiment was 4 syllables in the measurement window. For the CG, the number was near zero. It proved their hypothesis… The net of it is … if I (or any org) wants to give money to this cause to promote their efforts I know it is going towards something that has positive returns.
    Well done sir, I applaud your mind and your success.

  6. wow. cool idea

    movie subtitles are a great way to learn and/or keep up with a language…I do that for my Chinese.

  7. Nice! I used to do the same but gave up after much frustration.

    What does the movie caption (“O Ree Dhoree” ?) mean?

  8. This is also makes movies friendlier to deaf and hard of hearing audiences. All movies should be closed captioned. I’ve used closed captioning to get through some thick Cockney and Scottish dialog.

    I actually just bought a ton of Bengali DVDs with the hope that would help improve my Bangla. I definitely watched a lot of French movies with the hope of picking up more french. I’ve even learned to pick out the 5 words of Mandarin I’ve tried learning from Chinese flicks. I’m a big fan of movies as a language tool.

  11. What does the movie caption (“O Ree Dhoree” ?) mean?

    actually that says O Re Chhoree or roughly, in american… ‘hey girl’

  12. Very cool. I’ve been known to do something similar – watch bad action movies with the French subtitles on so that I get practice reading French.

    OK, so I’m a geek 🙂

    ah, don’t feel bad, fuzzy one. I watch my non- english movies a few times, first with subtitles, then without, and then have friends practice lines with me. and i beg friends to translate text and lyrics for me too. one day i will be fleunt in something ;*p . geeks are cool..esepcially when they have dastars….wait, is there really such a think as geek singh? nah…didn’t think so.

  14. .wait, is there really such a think as geek singh? nah…didn’t think so.

    huh???

    if memory serves Lagaan translated O re Chori as “hey lass” which sounds about right. Wench. . .not so much. I think regulations state you have to be near a port or in a smelly inn to be a wench. Wench might have worked better for that pub drinking scene in Asoka.

  15. .wait, is there really such a think as geek singh? nah…didn’t think so.

    huh???

    if memory serves Lagaan translated O re Chori as “hey lass” which sounds about right. Wench. . .not so much. I think regulations state you have to be near a port or in a smelly inn to be a wench. Wench might have worked better for that pub drinking scene in Asoka.

    ok, now im lost. i was commenting on ennis saying he’s a geek. i have never met a geeky singh. i’m wondering how we get from geeks to wenches…..(scratches head)

  16. Pattie: I was responding to DesiDudeInAustin, after “huh?”-ing you. . he translated the subtitle as “Hey Wench.” On admittedly limited information, I will vouch for Ennis’s geek cred. 😀

    i’m wondering how we get from geeks to wenches

    You’re not the only one.

  17. So cool. This guy deserves a Macarthur, or a Padma Vibushan, or whatever other accolades there are for brilliance.

    I know that I tend to rant about the crap factory that is Bollywood, but how can one not bow down to such genius! I’m sending my donation pronto. As in, immediatement. As in, odaney aiykyam…

  18. Great idea..and good to see the Telugu folk songs. Literacy to the masses through technology, and keeping the urban Indian from totally forgetting the rural culture of our country, are some of the purposes this initiative will serve.

    Good to know about this website. A formal ‘Telugu Computing Movement’ is planned to be started soon, with an aim to bring the benefits of computing in ‘Italian of the East’ to the common man who speaks it as his mother tongue.

    Kiran

    పంచఊటరకచ్చ పచఞఀొచలకచ్చ ఈ ఀెలుగు మిచ్చ

  19. i read about an ngo setting up an sms (gsm sim card..) receiver hooked up to a basic LED screen in the square of a village in southern idea. there are no land lines (surprise!) in the area and not many people can afford gsm phones. the premise being, anyone who wants to send a message to the village sms’s to the number of the sms receiver gismo, and the message flashes up on the screen for the village to see..

    again, not very useful if the literacy level is not very high.

  21. Oh how wonderful!! I had fun. I was trying to read Hindi which I had learned a few dinosaur eons ago!! Wonderful. I hope all the Hindi classes run in the US show these songs and help the kids practice their Hindi 🙂

  23. some states offer incentives to graduates taking up mass literacy programs

    Sujay Rao Mandavilli

  24. Saheli and Pattie, I will choose to stick to “hey wench” 🙂 It’s more colorful and I feel pirate-y. RRRRRR.

    Yeah. “Hey lass” is nice too, but et sownds uh leettle too Scot furr maeee.

  25. Great concept! Like the other French geeks out there, I watched French movies with sous-titres to help my French. Then, I learned Hindi through English titles on Bollywood flicks. So, I guess this is the next step!

    But, I seriously want to learn to read Gujarati. Anyone have recommendations on books or CD’s geared towards English speakers??