The many benefits of Subtitles
Subtitles intrigued me after my hard of hearing grandma discovered a new world when news tickers started being shown on cable tv.
Around 6.3 percent of the population (roughly 63 million people) have some level of functional hearing loss. Subtitles not only help the hearing impaired but also have other benefits.
Dr. Brij Kothari, founder of PlanetRead, professor at IIM-Ahmedabad and an Ashoka Fellow, is the pioneer of Same Language Subtitling (SLS) in India. His research showed that a seamless mix of reading through entertainment was very effective in advancing literacy. Studies demonstrated that 3 to 5 years of exposure to SLS can enable a person with basic familiarity with the alphabet, to become functionally literate.
Same Language Subtitling – or ‘SLS’ – is simply the idea of subtitling audio-visual content in the ‘same’ language as the audio. What you hear is what you read. SLS suggests subtitling the lyrics of existing film songs and music-videos on television, in the language they are sung in. Hindi songs subtitled in Hindi. Tamil songs subtitled in Tamil, and so on in every language (India has 22 official languages). In other words, Bollywood film songs marry karaoke to produce mass literacy.
Several eye-tracking studies from Europe and the US, including a recent one with school children in government schools in rural Rajasthan, have established that subtitles in the ‘same’ language just cannot be ignored. The brain cannot but match known letters with matching sounds. Reading along to songs is inherently motivating, even for the weakest readers.
The national television broadcaster Doordarshan's then DG and later chief election commissioner SY Qureshi signed on to the findings and joined the program, convinced that it would not affect their bottomline. With funding from Google, PlanetRead now does SLS in ten languages on DD and other channels.
While watching a subtitled show, the viewer subconsciously associates the spoken word with the words displayed on screen, thus practicing reading in an unobtrusive and hassle-free manner.
PlanetRead, an Indian non-profit born from IIM Ahmedabad, has been named winner of the Library of Congress' first international literacy award for its pioneering work in teaching millions of semi-literate people to read using same language subtitling (SLS) for Indian movie songs. The award, which carries prize money of $ 50,000, supports organizations working to alleviate problems of illiteracy and aliteracy (a lack of interest in reading) both in the United States and worldwide.
According to a Freakonomics report, "In Finland, whose education system has been ranked the world’s best, most children do not begin school until age seven but have often learned to read on their own by watching American television with Finnish subtitles."
It is gratifying to see not only many tv channels in India but also streaming sites (like Amazon Prime & Netflix) providing subtitles in multiple languages. The quality of some of the subtitles that I've been following is so good that I've been able to appreciate the content even more. I'm also impressed with subtitles on some shows that even describe the background score & find interesting the many adjectives they use to describe the music -
The auto-generated subtitles on YouTube also hold great promise. The URL pattern to read just the subtitles is https://www.youtube.com/api/timedtext?v=<videoID>&lang=en
Around 6.3 percent of the population (roughly 63 million people) have some level of functional hearing loss. Subtitles not only help the hearing impaired but also have other benefits.
Dr. Brij Kothari, founder of PlanetRead, professor at IIM-Ahmedabad and an Ashoka Fellow, is the pioneer of Same Language Subtitling (SLS) in India. His research showed that a seamless mix of reading through entertainment was very effective in advancing literacy. Studies demonstrated that 3 to 5 years of exposure to SLS can enable a person with basic familiarity with the alphabet, to become functionally literate.
Same Language Subtitling – or ‘SLS’ – is simply the idea of subtitling audio-visual content in the ‘same’ language as the audio. What you hear is what you read. SLS suggests subtitling the lyrics of existing film songs and music-videos on television, in the language they are sung in. Hindi songs subtitled in Hindi. Tamil songs subtitled in Tamil, and so on in every language (India has 22 official languages). In other words, Bollywood film songs marry karaoke to produce mass literacy.
Several eye-tracking studies from Europe and the US, including a recent one with school children in government schools in rural Rajasthan, have established that subtitles in the ‘same’ language just cannot be ignored. The brain cannot but match known letters with matching sounds. Reading along to songs is inherently motivating, even for the weakest readers.
The national television broadcaster Doordarshan's then DG and later chief election commissioner SY Qureshi signed on to the findings and joined the program, convinced that it would not affect their bottomline. With funding from Google, PlanetRead now does SLS in ten languages on DD and other channels.
While watching a subtitled show, the viewer subconsciously associates the spoken word with the words displayed on screen, thus practicing reading in an unobtrusive and hassle-free manner.
PlanetRead, an Indian non-profit born from IIM Ahmedabad, has been named winner of the Library of Congress' first international literacy award for its pioneering work in teaching millions of semi-literate people to read using same language subtitling (SLS) for Indian movie songs. The award, which carries prize money of $ 50,000, supports organizations working to alleviate problems of illiteracy and aliteracy (a lack of interest in reading) both in the United States and worldwide.
According to a Freakonomics report, "In Finland, whose education system has been ranked the world’s best, most children do not begin school until age seven but have often learned to read on their own by watching American television with Finnish subtitles."
It is gratifying to see not only many tv channels in India but also streaming sites (like Amazon Prime & Netflix) providing subtitles in multiple languages. The quality of some of the subtitles that I've been following is so good that I've been able to appreciate the content even more. I'm also impressed with subtitles on some shows that even describe the background score & find interesting the many adjectives they use to describe the music -
- dark
- doleful
- dramatic
- eerie
- gentle
- lively
- mellow
- mournful
- ominous
- playful
- poignant
- pulsing
- rousing
- sedate (rock music)
- serene
- sinister
- solemn
- somber
- soul
- stirring
- suspenseful
- tense
- tranquil ambient
- upbeat
- warm
The auto-generated subtitles on YouTube also hold great promise. The URL pattern to read just the subtitles is https://www.youtube.com/api/timedtext?v=<videoID>&lang=en
Comments
Post a Comment