Interviews & Articles

Back

The Power of Bollywood Karaoke –
How a Billion Have Learned to Read with the Help of Subtitles

Although India is an economically rising nation, there are still nearly three hundred million who cannot read (source: UNESCO). Even the 65.4 percent literacy rate from a 2001 census seems high, as a look behind the scenes reveals a large proportion of “early literate” people.

Brij Kothari, the keynote speaker at the opening plenary of Languages and The Media, describes the literacy situation in India like this: “Even after five years of schooling, 20 percent of children remain completely illiterate and 70 percent remain weak readers.” The big challenge is, he says, to keep the early literate sufficiently motivated and engaged in activities that could ensure lifelong engagement with the written word.

He found a popular way to at least start resolving this problem. His idea is: If Bollywood songs were shown with subtitles in the same language, India would become more literate. “That thought has since become a lifelong obsession of mine,” Kothari says about his vision in an interview with Languages and The Media.

Bollywood films are already popular in Europe – not to the degree they are in India, but the colourful films are known by many. But how can you learn to read with the help of Bollywood?

The programme Kothari founded is called Same Language Subtitling (SLS). It is a simple idea that consists of subtitling music videos and film songs on television, in the “same” language as that used for the audio track. What you hear is what you read, with every written word highlighted in perfect timing with the audio track.

Originally, subtitling was used for translation for the hearing impaired, but it assumes good reading skills. Karaoke is used for private or semi-private entertainment by literate people who can afford it. Bollywood essentially entertains. The SLS project combined these elements to provide reading practice opportunities on people’s screens at home. “SLS is the first effort of its kind, globally, to use subtitling of mainstream popular culture for reading skill enhancement at a mass level,” Kothari says about SLS.

Literacy through entertainment

Kothari says that the “secret” behind the success of SLS in combating illiteracy is the integration of reading into an existing and very popular activity – watching Bollywood film songs – without requiring any behavioural changes. Reading was switched on with this simple change “and most of the viewers didn’t even realise that they were on their way to becoming better readers.” Especially in India, TV is the key because it is the only medium, at present, with such a wide reach.

The development of SLS began in 1996 with the awareness that viewers liked songs with SLS better, mainly because it allowed them to sing along and learn the song lyrics. By 1999, SLS was implemented for the first time on state TV, added to a popular, weekly 30-minute programme.

200 Million Beneficiaries in India

Currently, SLS is used on 10 TV programmes in India in as many languages. “This is causing an estimated 200 million weak readers in India to get automatic and incidental reading practice. There is now strong research evidence that SLS improves reading ability and is transitioning millions of so-called literates, who earlier could not read, to being able to read newspapers,” says Kothari about the influences and positive developments of implementing SLS on TV.

Over the last 12 years, the SLS project has needed to win over the minds of policymakers and leaders in national agencies working on literacy issues. But television and education policymakers in India have gone from outright rejection of SLS to lukewarm acceptance. “Finding the funding to keep SLS on air while we conduct impact research and work to influence policy has been a major challenge.”

Despite noticeable developments, there are still future goals for the SLS project to reach. Kothari stated the immediate goal for India: “Every film song on TV, in any language, should be shown with SLS.” In time, Kothari is aiming to expand SLS to other genres of programming. Thus far, SLS has made a significant contribution to literacy in India, and it could also work for many countries in Africa and South Asia, where challenges with literacy are still present. Distribution of SLS to other countries is one of the bigger goals of the project.

On Thursday, October 30th, Brij Kothari will give a keynote speech at the opening plenary about his lifelong obsession.