Audio Book Rocks!

Our final project in English 103 class is the research paper linked with the book, “Reading Lolita in Tehran” by Azar Nafisi, which describes women’s Western literature study linked with their suppressed circumstance in men’s Islamic world. In the process of writing this research paper, I learned that how we are blessed with the human rights comparing to harsh treatment Iranian women experienced during revolutionary era. I felt that women’s voice there was ignored and they were completely suppressed by men’s selfish interpretation of Koran. I could feel the woman’s suffering days by knowing their background which makes our emotion to link to them. I also realized that how important literature plays to liberate one’s spirit. Even though, Iranian women characters in the book were highly suppressed in the society, they could feel they were in another free world when they read western literatures. The literature can take them to its imaginary world, which helps Islamic women’s captured soul free. Since I am in very blessed world with basic human rights, I can do many things without much limitation. Therefore, I did not appreciate the literature as much as after reading this book. At same time, I realized that how literature is powerful. It enables us to travel any types of world in our imagination. Now I understand why many of literature works has been banned in many parts of the world. It is very powerful tool.

This is not directly related to the topic of the research paper, but one of most amazing facts I have learned in doing this research project was experiencing audio book. I was so worried about reading so many pages in the limited time, since I have difficulty reading in English. When I read the text in English, I take too long; moreover, I have to reread some of the sentences to store information to my brain. I think I am more like auditory learner when it comes to English, since my listening skill is much better than reading skill. Then I visited my professor’s office to talk about this concern of reading tons of pages in limited time with good understanding. Then she told asked me if I have ipod. Then all the sudden the light turned on in my brain. Yes, the audio book! She suggested me to listen to the audio book to help reading the text. Then I tried this great idea which I never considered about. I audio book while I was driving long distance on the free way, then I was surprised how I can understand better by listening the text rather than reading. Then, I tried later the audio book with actual text on my hand when I was at home. I was so surprised with the result! It was like a magic, my brain digests the information much more effectively by listening to the text while reading the text. I could underline the important quotations while doing this task and it served as also an English class for me, because many of the words I do not even know how to pronounce. I was so glad to know how effective this method works for me. Now I will be addicted to having audio book and having text on my hand at same time. Thank you to my professor, encountering this method one of the most useful method I have acquired in this class besides all other critical reading and writing skills I have acquired. If some of you really struggle with reading, I definitely suggest you to try audio book plus actual text method. It rocks!