Ayta Dramas on Cassette
From SPARK
Brief Summary
"Live, relevant drama produced much more interest..."
Oral cultures require unique adaptations in order to communicate meaning in Scripture already translated into their language. This is especially critical in groups where attention spans are short from lack of development. Combining visual materials along with music and short dramas were the key for generating interest and understanding in this people group.
Introduction
In 2000 Luke 3-5 in Ayta Mag-indi was approved for publication. We thought that recording it on cassette would give many Ayta the opportunity to hear God’s word. Finding the best male readers we could, we recorded these chapters and returned a month later with the finished cassettes to test. As we observed listeners to the recordings and evaluated their response, we became baffled. Most Ayta did not find the tapes significantly interesting. At first we thought the problem might be poor translation or the style of the readers, so we investigated this, but found the translation to be clear and natural and well understood. The style and performance of the readers, while not perfect, did not appear to be the cause of the low response either. So what was?
We remembered an article we had read by another translator[1] describing how he had to decrease the information load in his translation for another Negrito audience to retain the information. We noticed that many Ayta had difficulty listening closely for longer than a minute or so. Could it be that continuous reading of Scripture, even well translated Scripture, just had too much information and came too quickly for our Ayta audience to assimilate? Further research, especially a paper by Rick Brown[1], lent further support to this hypothesis. But what should we do then if the Ayta could only listen to a brief amount of material that did not contain too much information?
Key Factors
- Scripture portions were translated and recorded.
- Ayta had difficulty listening closely for more than two minutes.
- There was an interest in flipchart stories.
What we did
We tried producing Language Recording Internationals (LRI or Gospel Recordings) Look, Listen, and Live flipchart picture series available at Global Recordings Network. This is a series of 8 large flipcharts. Each has 24 color photos of Bible stories. The last 3 pictures in each book make a transition from the themes of the preceding Bible stories to presenting Christ as Savior. The first 5 flipcharts include stories from the Old Testament and the last 3 flipcharts cover the New Testament. LRI supplies 2 English scripts for these flipcharts. One is short and the other longer. We adapted our translation from the shorter script making a few additions. The recorded story for each picture lasted between 30 seconds and 2 minutes. This seemed about the right length for the Ayta to listen. Listener response to the flipcharts was much better than the recorded Luke 3-5, but of course our audience had something to look at while listening, and the visual aid added significant information that was easy to assimilate. The flipchart Bible story recordings were an improvement, but we still sensed we could be more effective.
We had heard that other colleagues had produced contextualized dramas to communicate the themes of various Scripture passages. Could we brainstorm with our LA’s and come up with common real life situations in which a theme or principle from Luke could be applied? Joanne thought up several possible dramas and discussed these with our LA’s. Eventually they grasped the concept of creating a story that their fellow Aytas would relate to. Usually a common situation in village life, like disagreements, visitors, fishing, illness, or strained relationships. We scripted the first drama we recorded, but this made things cumbersome. The speakers would get lost trying to follow the script and were quite a bit more nervous. On the next drama we let them rehearse until they felt confident enough to speak their part and re-enact the entire drama. This worked much better. We usually recorded two takes of a drama and they would then listen to each and choose the one they liked best. Sometimes after listening to the first take they would add material or increase the dramatic intensity of their voice in the second take. After a while they really began to enjoy being like radio actors.
We finished nine dramas in all. The shortest was one minute, the longest nine minutes. We wanted each drama to be part of a longer program that would include Scripture and music. We created a 15 second introduction with guitar background. An Ayta man explains, “Let’s listen to Ayta stories that tell us about right and wrong and what God says for us.” Next would come the drama, then an Ayta song, Scripture passage, second song, second Scripture passage, third song, and finally a short conclusion.
The themes and associated Scriptures used in the dramas were:
| Theme | Scriptures | |
|---|---|---|
| Repentance | Luke 3:3-8, 15-17 | Luke 7:36-50 |
| Overcoming temptation | Luke 4:1-13 | Luke 8:4-15 |
| Wholeheartedness | Luke 5:1-11 | Luke 9:57-62 |
| Humility | Luke 6:20-26 | Luke 22:24-30 |
| Love your enemy | Luke 6:27-36 | Luke 6:6-11 |
| Do not judge others | Luke 6:37-42 | Luke 9:51-56 |
| Healing | Luke 8:26-39 | Luke 8:40-55 |
| Faith | Luke 9:10-17 | Luke 7:1-10 |
| Don’t be ashamed Christ | Luke 9:23-27 | Luke 8:16-18 |
Results
The initial response to the drama tape programs was high. Aytas of all ages listened carefully showing emotions as they identified with aspects of the story, Scripture or music. Further evaluation is needed to determine improvements for future audio programs.
What we learned
A valuable insight we learned from these audio projects is that we would need to translate narratives in the style that made the most sense to an Ayta. Translation as traditionally done in the Philippines, closely follows verse by verse content of the Scriptures. Ayta narratives to be most meaningful would be set up differently. Audio presentations more easily allow for this type of flexibility. One way we have sought to make the written translation more meaningful is with the use of longer section headings that describe both the content of the following passage and its meaning or theme. An example of this is the section heading for Luke 7:36-50: “A woman was forgiven because she showed that her repentance was true.” We expect to learn more about how Ayta understand narratives as we produce further audio programs.
- By Roger Green
