Tapping the potential of oral learners

TWR in Cambodia has been producing radio programs to oral leaners, both story and song format is produced to reach the Khmer people group. The development of this project has been successful due to the efforts of the local Khmer believers who did the worldview study, and through partnerships identified Pastor Barnabas who is a natural and best story teller to the Buddhist worldview ,to be the story teller on the radio program, and along with appropriate dialog the radio program was designed to be 30 minutes, aired once a week due to financial constraints. However, as the radio program was field tested it revealed the attention span of listeners was limited to 5 to 7 minutes, and the idea to reinforce the story by creating the story into song format was conceptualised. In order to do this again Khmer christian aritists were identified and excellent production of songs in the Khmer traditional music format was composed. Thus the story is reinforced through songs, and the field testing proved people liked to listen to the song more and were able to remember and recollect the stories. The lesson learnt in the process is to look to the Lord of Harvest to raise people within a people group to empower them to reach the oral audience through oral communication principles is a worthy lesson to lear and apply.