A Scenario for a
Demonstration Class
1.
INTRODUCTION
Hello, every one. Welcome to this English class. How are you today? I’m sure every one of you is quite fine. Are you ready? OK.
Let’s get started.
In this class, we are going to use English
almost all the time. But don’t
worry. You’ll find it not so difficult.
To begin with, I will give you three
riddles. Do you know what a riddle is
like? Let me give you an example. What do you call a thing which has three
colored eyes with a long leg? (To draw a
picture.) Can you answer this
riddle? What is it? (S1: A traffic light.) That’s right.
The answer of this riddle is “a traffic light.” Do you understand what a riddle is like? In this case, the language doesn’t matter if
it is either English or Japanese. But
the next three riddles, the language must be English. You will soon understand it.
Then, let’s go on to the first riddle. Why is a river so rich? Can you guess? In other words, why does a river have lots
and lots of money? Guess again.
The answer is: Because it – I mean a river—has two banks. The
word “bank” has two meanings. One is “the
side of a river.” (To draw a
picture.) The other is “money bank,” in
which people save or borrow money.
The second riddle is: What is the name of a flower which likes kisses? The answer is: Tulip, because it has two lips. The upper lip and the lower lip.
The third riddle is: What is the longest word in English? You
don’t have to think of a very long word.
It’s a riddle. The answer is: Smiles, because there is “a mile” between
the first and the last letters.
As for the third riddle, do you know the
true answer? I mean – Do you know the
truly longest word in English? I will
give you the answer later.
Now I will tell you one of the longest
words in English from a Disney film called
Mary Poppins. Have you watched this
film? If so, please raise your hand. OK.
One of the longest words which is used in
this film is:
Supercalifragiristicexperidocious
How many words do you think there are in
this word? Let’s count up to make sure how many words there are
in this word. Before that, what do you
when you are told to count down? S2, count down,
please. “(S2) Five, four, three, two,
one, zero.” Good, well-done. Let’s count up the number of letters in this word. All together now.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven… There are 33 letters in a word!
It is not so
difficult to pronounce and memorize this word as you might think. We can pronounce and memorize this word to
music. Let’s listen to this song on
You-Tube. I’m sure you can enjoy the
song very much. Pay your attention only
to this word. You don’t have to care
about other English. Here we go!
Supercalifragiristicexperidocious
(from Mary
Poppins)
Pneumono-ultra-microscopic- silico-volcano-coni-osis
This is the longest word in the Oxford
English Dictionary (OED).
Let’s count up again to know how many
letters there are in this word.One, two, three, four, five, six, seven… There are 45 letters in a word! Although there are so many words in a word, this time again, it is not so difficult as you think. The word consists of one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, 7 meanings or chunks. According to George Miller’s study on human memory, we can memorize things which consist of 7 plus minus 2 meanings or chunks. Miller’s article is “The Magical Number 7±2” in Psychological Review published in 1952.
1.
MAIN POINT (The Commencement Address Delivered
by Steve Jobs, CEO=Chief Executive Officer of Apple Computer, on June 1, 2005.)
Now let’s go on to the next step. We are going to watch and listen to the
speech of Steve Jobs. Do you know Steve
Jobs? If so, please raise your hand.
OK. Steve Jobs is the founder and president of
Apple Computer Company. But
unfortunately, he died of cancer last year, 2011. When you drop in at bookstores nearby, you
will find some books written by himself or books about him. Before watching and listening to his speech,
please look at the worksheet of part 1. I
wrote down the beginning of his speech.
I will explain some words and phrases.
The first one is “commencement.” “Commencement” and “graduation” are the same,
「卒業」 in
Japanese. On your sheet, you see a
sentence “I never graduated from college.”
This is important. Steve Jobs did
not graduate from college. He “dropped
out.”
Now look at the underlined part, “one of
the finest universities in the world.”
Stanford University is one of the finest or the most wonderful
universities in the world. Can you name
some of the finest universities in the world?
In England, there are two of the finest universities in the world. Can you name them? These are the two:「牛津」 and 「剣橋」.
Oxford and Cambridge.
They are sometimes called “Oxbridge” in combination.
How about in America? (Showing a photo of Michael Sandel) Who is
this person? Do you know him? His name is Michael Sandel. He is giving lectures on political philosophy
at one of the finest universities in the world.
Stanford University lies on the West Coast near San Francisco or Silicon
Valley, California. This university at
which Professor Sandel is giving lectures lies on the East Coast near Boston,
Massachusetts. Can you name this
university? Yes. Harvard.
Harvard University is one of the finest universities in the world.
OK.
Let’s watch and listen to the speech of Steve Jobs without subtitles.
Now let me ask you some questions of this
part.
#1 Did you catch the phrase “dropped out”? OK.
Steve dropped out soon after the first 6 months. Why did he drop out?
#2 Did you catch the phrase “connecting the dots”? What and what did he connect?
#3 Did you catch the phrases “biological mother”
and “adopted or adoption”?
Steve was not
brought up by his real parents but by his adoptive parents.
OK.
Did you catch “Stay Hungry. Stay
Foolish.”? This is what Steve wanted to
give Stanford graduates as the final message.
Translate “Stay Hungry. Stay
Foolish” into Japanese. Into impressive
Japanese.
My Japanese is:
Stay Hungry. =「貪欲であれ。」
Stay Foolish. =「愚直であれ。」
2.
SUMMARY
At the end of the speech, Steve Jobs said, “Stay
Hungry. Stay Foolish.” In English, the word “foolish” or the noun
form “fool” does not always mean “bad.”
For example, have you watched Kurosawa Akira’s one of the best movies, 『七人の侍』? If
so, please raise your hand. Do you
remember that among 7 samurais, there appeared Kikuchiyo, acted by Mifune
Toshiro? When I watched this film, I
didn’t understand why Kikuchiyo spoke or acted in such foolish ways. But when I learned Shakespeare’s dramas at
college, I realized that Kikuchiyo played a role of “a fool” in Shakespeare’s
dramas. In them, “a fool” is not
foolish. “A fool” looks foolish, but
says things to be true. The more I have
realized the important role of a fool, the better I have realized Kikuchiyo’s
role in Kurosawa’s 『七人の侍』.
Another example that “a fool” is not always
foolish is a Beatles’ song called “The Fool on the Hill.” Have you ever listened to the song? If so, please raise your hand. OK. Do
you know the fact that there is a model of the fool in this song? Who claimed or insisted that although the sun
looks going up in the east and going down in the west, in fact or in reality,
the earth itself is spinning round? It
is true that Copernicus, a Polish scholar, a scholar in Poland, claimed or
insisted this theory, but he is not the model of this song. Who is the Italian scholar who claimed or
insisted this theory? I mean that
although the sun looks going up in the east and going down in the west,
actually, the earth itself is spinning round.
Can you guess? Yes! The model of this song called “The Fool on
the Hill” is Galileo Galilei, an Italian scholar who lived around 1600.
Now let’s go back to the song “The Fool on
the Hill.” Look at this sheet of
paper. Here are words or lyrics of the
song on it. Look at the underlined
parts. You can find the words like this:
“But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down. And the eyes in his head see the world
spinning round.” I’m sure you can
understand that the model of the song is Galileo Galilei. Let’s listen to the song of the Beatles
called “The Fool on the Hill.”
THE WORKSHEET OF THE CLASS
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Answer of the
Example:
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Answer of Riddle
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Answer of Riddle
2:
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Answer of Riddle
3:
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One of the
longest word from Mary Poppins:
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There are ( ) letters in the word.
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THE longest word in OED:
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There are ( ) letters in the word.
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[Part
1] The Beginning of the Speech by Steve
Jobs
I am honored to be with you today at your
commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever
gotten to a college graduation. Today I
want to tell you three stories from my life.
That’s it. No big deal. Just three.
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The Finest Universities
in the World:
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「首相」「総理大臣」＝
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「工学博士」＝
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Connecting the
dots =「点と点をつなぐこと」
Dropped out =「学校を辞める・中退する」
Biological mother
=「生みの母」
Adoption =「養子に出すこと」、Be adopted =「養子にもらわれる」
My mother had
never graduated from college.
=「私の母は大学を卒業していなかった。」
My father had
never graduated from high school.
=「私の父は高校を卒業していなかった。」
My parents
promised that I would someday go to college.
=「私の両親は私がいつの日か大学に進学することを約束した。」
I did go to
college. =「私は本当に大学に進学した。」
I naively chose a
college that was almost as expensive as Stanford.
=「私は何も知らずにスタンフォード大学のような学費の高い大学を選んだ。」
After 6 months, I
couldn’t see the value in it.
=「6カ月後には、私は大学に価値を見いだせなくなった。」
Here I was
spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.
=「ここで私は両親が生涯をかけて貯金した金を全部使ってしまった。」
So I decided to
drop out. =「だから私は大学を辞めた。」
Looking back, it
was one of the best decisions I ever made.
=「振り返ってみると、大学を辞めたことは私の最善の決断の1つだった。」
Much of what I stumbled
into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later
on.
=「私の好奇心と直感で偶然見つけたものの大部分は、後になってみると、お金に換えられない貴重なものとなっているのが分かった。」
Calligraphy =「習字法・装飾書法(日本では書道・習字)」
It was beautiful,
historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I
found it fascinating.
=「それ(calligraphy)は、美しく、歴史的で、科学でとらえることが出来ないほど芸術的に繊細だった。そして私はそれ(calligraphy)に夢中になった。」
Macintosh / Mac =「マキントッシュ・マックコンピュータ」
Fonts =「フォント・文字の書式や大きさ」、Windows =「ウィンドウズ」
=「もし私が大学を辞めていなければ、calligraphyのクラスにふらりと立ち寄ることもなかっただろうし、パソコンも現在持っているようなすばらしい印刷の体裁を持つことはなかっただろう。」
Again, you can’t
connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them (dots) looking
backwards.
=「繰り返しますが、前もって点と点をつなぐことはできません。振り返ってみて初めて点と点がつながるのです。」
[Part
3] The Closing Remarks of the Speech
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Stay Hungry.
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Stay Foolish.
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