発表担当　　１２番　勝　智琴



****World youth と私****

１. **はじめに**
　
 World youthに初めて出会ったのは昨年の夏でした。しかし昨年は完璧にお客としてでした
ので特に印象に残ることもなく過ぎていきました。
　今年に入ってWorld youthの話が出たとき、私には昨年のあまり良くない印象が残って
いたので正直なところ乗り気ではなかったのです。しかし発表チームという、かなり中心
的な仕事を受け持つことになりました。


２. ** World youthの思ひ出**

　私たちはWORKSHOPにも参加しました。皆が着なくなったＴシャツを集めて、皆で編んで
太い一つの縄にすることが目的でした。縄作りをしているとき福井商業と夢学園の子と仲
良くなりました。私たちはかなり気が合ったみたいで、その日はずっと一緒に居ました。
今でもたまにその子達と連絡を取り合っています。冬休みあたりには皆で集まりたいとも
話しています。
　私は当日の発表で調査結果を担当したのですが、原稿量が多すぎたので削減しなければ
いけませんでした。どうしても残したくてこれだけは譲れないという箇所が多く、思った
ほど削減できませんでした。そうしたら、Courtney が自分のパートを減らして私に譲ってくれ、
Patrick は前日に一緒に原稿を推敲してくれ、当日の読み方の練習につきあってくれました。
その心遣いがとてもうれしく、大感激しました。
　発表チームは思っていたより楽しくかったけれど、かなり大変でもう辞めたいと何度も
思いました。でも英語の原稿は酒井先生、Powre Point は品田君に。他にもたくさんの人に手伝っ
てもらい、なんとかやり遂げることが出来ました。
　アメリカの Chris, Patrick and Courtney 達と出会えたのは本当に良い思い出です。
彼等はとても優しかったです。発表当日かなり緊張していた私を「ﾀﾞｲｼﾞｮｳﾌﾞ､ｶﾞﾝﾊﾞﾛｳ」と
励ましてくれました。 
　

３. **当日の私の原稿**

SURVEY RESPONSE ANALYSIS (JA)　(Ver.3)

Together we made a survey on how American and Japanese teenagers are
interested in various aspects of a daily life. Some of the results were not so 
surprising, other results were amazingly different between American and 
Japanese teenagers.

Let's take up the similarities first. As to the items "Your Future (Question 
#1), Dating (Question #4), Entertainment (Question #5), and Family (Question 
#6), there was no big difference between American and Japanese responses. A 
lot of us are interested in them while the results were about the same in that 
only a few are interested in Politics (Question #2). It could be said that 
"teenagers are teenagers wherever you live". 

The items "Religion (Question #3) and Education (Question #7)" show a big
difference in results between the American and Japanese survey responses.
Americans are more interested in both religion and education than Japanese.

We received an interesting result from the question #8 "Do you receive an 
allowance from your parents?" About 40% of American students answered yes, 
while about 70% of Japanese answered yes.

Looking at the result of the question # 10 "Do you work on a regular basis?",
we knew that more American students would respond with YES than Japanese.

Questions # 11, #12, and #13 examined the prices of several common 
purchase type items that the students of the two countries thought were
expensive. The response to these questions resulted in no significant difference 
in the cost!!

In the final part of the survey (Question #14), we gave our primitive 
impressions about each other's countries, people, cultures and so on. Although 
we have come to know more about each other after various kinds of interchange 
activities including e-mail or video conferences, the impressions we had toward 
each other still had a lot of misconceptions.

American students corrected Japanese students' wrong impressions and
Japanese corrected Americans'. We considered why we came to have such 
wrong impressions based on the corrections American students made for us. 
First, we found something in common among the wrong impressions. We had 
thought what was true of only a limited group of people was true of all 
Americans. They were all from various media, such as TV or magazines. Media 
tend to simplify and exaggerate what they give us so that we can understand it 
easily. Yes, it could be the case of some part of America, but of course not of the 
entire USA. We used the information to label the Americans rather casually.

Also we were apt to judge the entire Americans from the experience of 
meeting only one American. Isn't it an easy job to label a big country called
America with only one example? If she was shy, all Americans would be shy.
If he was talkative, then everyone would be so. We also found that we had
ignored most of the individuals by labeling America the way we did.

Is there any positive meaning of labeling others? Is it a good thing? We
discussed the matter. One of us said even if we label others in a wrong way,
it is useful in that we can use it as a topic of discussion toward understanding 
others properly. In other words, it is significant if it can be used as a 
hypothesis, not as a mere prejudice. Another said labeling an individual you 
met is not wrong. If it is extended to a whole nation, it is even a worse 
misunderstanding. It means that you are ignoring all the other individuals in 
the nation. An individual is an individual wherever you live, whatever your 
race. It is natural that people differ from each other in culture, customs, ways 
of thinking, and so on. We have to make efforts to understand each other with
that in mind.

Katsu Chikoto

４．**最後に**

　発表前日に大慌てで原稿を作っているチームもあり、今思うと私たちの学校は
かなり早い段階で形になっていたと思います。そのおかげで前日は読みのリハーサル
だけで終わることが出来ました。
　World youth で学んだことは、私の英語力なんてまだまだで、実際に外国の人の前に
立ったら全然話せませんでした。学校で習う文法や綴りだって役に立ちません。
そこで気付いたことは、兎に角笑顔で居ることです。
私たちは英語が話せませんが、外国の子は日本語が話せません。皆状況は同じなのです。
そのとき奥に引っ込むだけでなく、例え単語のみでもいいから笑顔で話すことが大事だと
思いました。
　それに気付くことが出来たことも含め高校生最後になって本当に貴重な、良い体験が出来ました。 

＜English＞　　
What I learned during the WYM is that my ability to use English is 
not good enough still.  I had to keep quiet in front of foreign 
students.  
What I learn at school is only the grammar of English and 
that doesn't help much in the case of real conversation.   
The solution I found then is to keep smiling all the time.  
We can't speak in English very well and the foreign students 
can't speak Japanese well, either.  
We are in the same situation.  
So we should not keep quiet and try to speak a word or two with your 
smile.  
Including what I have written above, I am glad to have such good 
experiences at the final summer of my hi school days.