ABU (Over 26 years old) Fine Work "Which do you prefer for gaining knowledge and information about the world -- Braille or Audio Devices? Why?" Kamalbir Singh Jaggi (45, male, India) |
As a language -- teacher and a teacher-trainer, I propagate the approach of Communicative Language Teaching(CLT) which stresses upon the proficiency of four basic language skills i.e.-listening, speaking, reading and writing.While listening and speaking skills are termed as primary skills simply because informal learning at the initial stage begins with these for a child even before he enters the school or a classroom, the introduction of reading and writing truly heralds the inception of an individual's formal education.The skills of listening and reading are preferred to as receptive skills, whereas speaking and writing skills are alluded to as productive or output or expressive skills.Since a language is undoubtedly the mode of communication and the medium of learning or gaining knowledge and information, all the four language skills are interrelated and integrated together.Thus, a cursory glance would make it apparently difficult to set preference of one over the other.A careful review, on the contrary, makes it a very easy choice in favour of Braille. The metaphorical idiom "The beggars cannot be the choosers" might have had a very literal implication for the visually Challenged but for the invention of the Braille Script.One can easily fancy their plight in case of non-existence of a script and education.When I look back at my school and college days, I can still vividly visualize my desperate hunt for the desired Braille versions of the required texts from one library to another.In the school the audio-recordings of the textbooks were freely available; the Braille copies, on the other hand, were far too scarce and had to be made out with efforts.I always opted for the more arduous task and consequently obtained a genuine contentment of having undergone studies.During my higher education, the English literature textbooks in Braille were loaned by overseas libraries and the ship-transportation of the books consumed most of the precious time of the academic year.Mostly, the year had a climax with a happy ending in which the postman played the role of a saviour with the delivery of Braille book. On all those occasions when I could not get hold of the Braille texts, I too had to resort to the audio-material.However, the experience has generally been dissatisfying and dissuading.The first observation is that the Visually Challenged are thoroughly at the mercy of the readers: Whether it was the lusty physical description of the beloved in Spenser's Prothalamionor other love coins; whether there were the sensuous escapades of Tom Jones in Henry Fielding's novel of the same title; whether it was the depiction of the intimate man-woman relations in women in(or in semi-pornographical novel Lady Chatterley'sLover) by DH Lawrence -- the girl-readers felt too shyand reluctant to read aloud the 'sensitive-portions'on most occasion left these unrecorded without realizing their significance from the examination point-of-view. In another instant, an over-enthusiastic reader had a whim to record Thomas Hardy's TheMayor of Casterbridge in dramatisation by modulating different voices for the characters.It was a brilliant idea, but I could only make out the descriptive portions of the recorded novel.The dialogues of the protagonists(Henchard and Farfray) and even the rustics were completely incomprehensible.I certainly missed the Braille version. Secondly, the output sound of the recording used to be subdued or inaudible, so much so that it was very difficult to comprehend the text even at the cost of overstraining.This happened in case the person engaged in recording was ignorant of the exact mechanism.Thirdly, the mechanical breakdown of the audio-device, the snapping or entangling of the cassette tape, power-cuts, electricity failure, the weak batteries etc. were the types of hindrances that posed themselves just at the eleventh hour. Moreover, for a sighted person, the cassettes or CD's signify entertainment.Our sighted counterparts find it difficult to correlate studies with the audio-devices.On the other hand, books represented in a script are the true symbols of learning material.The audio-format is only the makeshift arrangement which does not fully help in clear concept building and concept-formation.A Visually Challenged listening to his study-material is generally taken for granted, howsoever seriously he may be engaged in studies.When it comes to expressing himself, he may find himself lacking in the proper knowledge of spellings, punctuation, indentation, formatting etc. To conclude, Louis Braille's bicentennial birth commemorations are close at hand.The most befitting tribute to the veteran would be to adopt stringent measures at various levels to spread Braille literacy and make the knowledge of the script compulsory for the Visually challenged.This is the only means to their efficiency, self-dependence and self-sufficiency. |
Back 5th Onkyo Braille Essay Contest -- Middle East, Central and South Asia Region 5th Onkyo Braille Essay Contest -- Other Region |
|