What 3 sayings teach us about learning English
Dr Bean (高來圭)
http://drbean.freeshell.org/saying.html
Ideas
developed for 北岡真理 for a ヤマハ英語教室 newsletter in 大阪, about 2010
Corona virus
Good news, Bad news joke
About the fatality rate, there is: good news and bad news
The good news is that only 2~3% are dying
The bad news is that the rate for those over 65-years-of-age is 50%
Some good news bad news jokes
- Doctor: I have some good news and bad news.
Patient: What’s the good news?
Doctor: You have 24 hours to live.
Patient: What’s the bad news?
Doctor: I’ve been trying to call you since yesterday.
Another good news bad news joke
- Swimmer: I’m drowning! Help!
Bystander: I have good news and bad news.
Swimmer: What’s the good news?
Bystander: A man has jumped in to save you.
Swimmer: What’s the bad news?
Bystander: He can’t swim.
3 sayings
Boys and girls, be ambitious!
Nothing succeeds like success.
- Turn on
Tune in
Drop out
Boys, be ambitious!
Gaijin kabure (西洋発疹,炎症)
Mori Arinori
Mori Arinori
- 1865, studied in England
- 1875, Marriage agreement
- 1885, Minister of Education
- 1889, Killed by nationalists
William S Clark
William S Clark–career
- 1852-1867, Professor at Amherst College
- 1861-1863, Colonel in Civil War
- 1867-1879, President of Massachusetts Agricultural College
- 1876-1877, Vice-President(?) of Sapporo Agricultural College
- 1879-1882, President of mining company
黒田清隆, 1840-1900
Kuroda Kiyotaka
1869, Fought in Meiji wars 1870-1872, Oversaw Hokkaido development 1888-, Japanese prime minister 1900, Died
Amherst College
Massachusetts Agricultural College
Japan expansion
Clark statue
Being ambitious
I want to do something great!
I want to do something wonderful!
I want to be famous.
You! Be ambitious!
Doesn’t make sense.
You’re either ambitious or not ambitious.
Perhaps your parents expected great things of you, and as a result of that influence you are ambitious.
But it’s not something you can decide to be, if you were not ambitious before.
Things you can be.
You’re not being polite. Be polite.
You’re not being careful. Be careful.
You’re being silly. Don’t be silly.
Things you can say.
Try to be a good person.
Stand tall, but not, ‘Be tall.’
Things you can’t tell someone to be.
Be afraid, be very afraid
But, ‘Don’t be afraid,’ is OK
Don’t worry, be happy.
Be + adjective as a command
The adjective describes behavior rather than state of mind, or physical characteristic.
If ‘being X’ is weird, then ‘Be X’ as a command is weird, too.
Boys and girls, be ambitious.
What does it mean?
Motivation is everything.
Nothing succeeds like motivation, when you’re learning a language.
Nothing succeeds like success.
What does it mean?
It doesn’t make sense.
The opposite of
What is success?
Success is going from failure to failure without loss of confidence.–Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Nothing succeeds like ..
Nothing succeeds like the confidence that you can turn failure into success, according to Winston Churchill.
Supreme confidence
Confidence unsupported by experience.
Nothing succeeds like ..
Nothing succeeds like hard work (the willingness to work hard to reach your goal)
Nothing succeeds like ..
Nothing succeeds like teamwork.
Many hands make light work.
Nothing succeeds like ..
Nothing succeeds like experience.
Joke: Experience is the best teacher because it gives the test first and the lesson after.
But ..
Nothing succeeds like success.
To be successful, you have to be successful?
Doh.
It means:
You must be successful, whatever the cost?
Even if it ruins your life?
Riddle
- Question: Why will you never starve in the desert?
- Answer: Because of all the sandwiches (=sand which is) there.
Best interpretation of a riddle
Achieving success takes a long time.
To achieve success now, you have to have been successful before.
Achievement at the end is guaranteed by success every step of the way.
The answer to the riddle
Nothing succeeds like success, because success is built on earlier success.
Another answer
Success encourages you and often leads to more success.
"The first quiz the students do
should be one they can answer
well. Why? Because the teacher knows 'nothing
succeeds like success'."My interpretation for language learning
Because motivation is important, success is important. Success is motivating, failure demotivating.
Experience success in some part (any part) of language learning and build on that to achieve success in other parts.
A corollary for language learning
It doesn’t really matter what I or other people think is the best way for you to learn.
What YOU think is the best way for you, IS the best way, the way that is most successful for you.
There are many ways to learn
I think it’s good to have L1 equivalents for new words.
You think it’s better not to have L1 equivalents for new words.
Different strokes for different folks!
Turn on, Tune in, Drop out
Words, not Ideas
I’m taking the words, but not the ideas.
Drugs, smoking and drinking are bad.
Timothy Leary (1920-1996)
Harvard psychologist
- 1950, Gets PhD
- 1959-1963, Hired/Fired by Harvard
- 1963-1970, Counterculture guru
- 1970-1972, Imprisoned, escapes to Algeria, arrested in Afghanistan
- 1973-1976, Imprisoned
- 1976-1996, Popular lecturer
Marshall McLuhan, media theorist
McLuhan as source
Turn on, Tune in, Drop out
According to Dr Leary
- Turn on (=take drugs)
- Tune in (=think about values)
- Drop out (=join the counterculture & become a hippie)
Not good
Turn on, Tune in, Drop out
According to Dr Bean
- Turn on (=find learning languages exciting)
- Tune in (=learn about the L2 culture)
- Drop out (=leave the L1 culture, join the L2 culture)
Good
Turn on
Turn back/around/up/down/in, etc
- Turn on a tap, light, TV, radio, washing machine
- Turn someone on (=excite them sexually, or with drugs, or some other thing)
Tune in
- Tune a piano, car
- Select a radio station, TV channel
- To pay attention to, be aware of, and follow something
Drop out
- 17% of all Americans have dropped out.
- 25% of first-year students drop out.
- 32% of all students drop out.
But, drop out rates are decreasing,
At public four-year institutions the dropout rate in the first year is 17.6%, which is the lowest rate.
And, there are more women in college than men.
Counterculture
A culture with values and behavior very different from those of mainstream society, sometimes in a relationship of conflict with mainstream society.
Taiwan counterculture
In the context of Taiwan, mainstream American culture (or mainstream Western culture, in general) is a counterculture.
At home, a mainstream culture, a counterculture abroad.
American counterculture
In the American context, hippies became the largest and most visible countercultural group in the late 1960s.
The hipsters were an earlier, smaller countercultural group from the 1940s to 1950s.
Dr Bean as countercultural figure
In Australia, I’m a member of mainstream Australian society.
In Taiwan, I’m a member of a counterculture.
A representative of a counterculture.
You as countercultural figure
In Taiwan, you’re a member of mainstream Taiwanese society.
In Australia and elsewhere, you’re a member of a counterculture.
A representative of a counterculture.
‘Oh, you’re from Taiwan.’
Counter
- counterclockwise (=anti-clockwise)
- counterespionage (=detecting and countering foreign spies)
- counterattack (=an attack made in response to an attack made by another)
Dr Bean’s advice
Drop out (but graduate from NUU first.)
Travel overseas.
Don’t look back.
Live with the other people, whether French, Japanese, Vietnamese, Australians, South Africans, Bolivians, Nigerians, Russians!
Learn their language!
It’s wonderful!
Dr Bean’s story
I learned Japanese by myself from 1978 to 1980 before going to Japan.
I lived in Korea from 1986 to 1996.
I came to Taiwan in 1999. I taught at NUU from 2008 to 2020.