美田中の生徒の過去5年間の英語スピーチ原稿です。先輩達はとても優秀な成績を収めています。参考にしてください。
　　
Good communication / Nanako Iizuka

　　“English is hard! I give up.”
Have you ever heard that before? How about, “Communication is important.” Which do you believe? I believe both.

　　When I went to Australia this summer Kelly, my 13-year-old host sister, was very kind to me. She did her very best to understand my poor English. But sometimes it wasn’t enough.

　　The second day I was there, I was upset because I couldn’t say what I wanted, and sometimes I couldn’t understand Kelly either. I felt there was a huge wall between us. And Kelly looked just as upset. So, I gave up and didn’t talk to her. But that didn’t help anything. I still needed to communicate with everyone.

　　The next day Kelly and I went shopping, while her father went to a gym. Afterwards he asked me, “Nanako, does your father go to the gym like me?” At first I didn’t know what to say. My father would never do anything so active!　But I decided to tell the truth. “No, he doesn’t. My father eats and sleeps, and then and eats and sleeps some more. My mother gets angry and says ‘Just stand up and move already!’” When they heard this, my host parents just laughed and laughed. Finally, I felt like we were communicating. After that, I felt at ease and talked a lot. Maybe I didn’t always say things perfectly, but I kept on trying.

　　Good communication isn’t just about saying the right words. It’s also about the feelings you share. That joke about my father opened a world of communication to me and my host-family. We all felt happy and connected through the good time we shared.

　　Maybe English is hard, and it’s easy to give up. But giving up doesn’t help anything. It only makes things harder. But good communication is priceless. It makes life so much better.

　　Now, I have some great memories and wonderful new friends. And I will always have them ?forever. So, keep trying. I promise it’s worth it.
Thank you for listening.

What we can do for frogs / Ootake Shiori

　　Do you know Numagaeru? This summer I saw many of these frogs in my neighbor town. They are from the south of my prefecture. They are brown. I like green one. Numagaeru is known to eat smaller green frogs. I saw a green frog eaten by a numagaeru. The popular color among Japanese people is green. But what if numagaeru becomes popular and frog characters becomes brown? These kind of things are happening all over the world now. Its cause is global warming.

　　Global warming is a result of rising temperature by the greenhouse effect. Rising temperature causes growth in population of some particular animals. In Yamaguchi prefecture, Argentina ants had a huge population explosion. They were introduced to Japan from Argentina. This ant can walk faster with the rising of temperature. The cause is the rise in temperature.

　　There are similar problems at sea.　Japan’s average water temperature rose one degree over the last century. Therefore sea urchins had population explosion in some waters. Rising water temperatures interfere with marine plants growing. Marine plants interfere with sea urchins growing. The ecosystem keeps its balance. So, the decrease of marine plants happens as the sea urchins grow. A large growth of one population brings a large extinction of another. On top of that, those sea urchins taste bad.

　　We have some good news! In the UK, its now law to mark foods for distance of transportation. This is to reduce fuel usage. In Australia people are changing incandescent lamps to fluorescent lamps to save power. We must take these measures. Let’s try to start at home. Do you keep your ac on all night? Do you bring your own reusable shopping bags? Do you use too much water? Such little things can change the future. Our convenient life leads to global warming. We must save mother earth. Don’t be unconcerned about our environmental problems. I want to see green frogs in the future. Thank you very much.

The Legend of My Pinky / Matsumoto Manami

Are you superstitious? I am. I think my left pinky is CURSED. Please listen to my story…

　　When I was 4, I ‘half-grounded’ my pinky with a kakigori machine. When I was 8, I was playing tag with my friends at school. A heavy door pancaked my pinky. The nail died. When I was 9, I was cutting a lemon. I aimed carefully, but my knife missed. ‘S-q-u-i-s-h’. I felt something warm. Blood on the lemon, blood on the table, blood on the floor, blood EVERYWHERE. My pinky was hanging by the skin. Amazingly I felt no pain, and I didn’t have to go to a hospital. My mother said, “That’s because you have lots of blood in your body, dear. You’re so lucky.”

　　Why is all this happening to my left pinky? For the next 3 years, nothing happened. I thought, “I’m gonna be alright!”, but unfortunately the curse was still there. This year, when I was practicing volleyball, I received a spiked ball from my senior, I broke my left pinky.

　　Will my curse be broken? Will my pinky be safe? What do you think? I want to believe it’s coincidence, but
maybe it’s something ELSE. Now, are you superstitious? Wish me good luck! Thank you very much.

For Monica 　　　　/ Furukawa Ayano

　　Hello, everyone.

　　I asked my mother. “Mom, what is the happiness for children?” “Let me see. They have a place to live, clothes to wear and of course, enough food.” she answered. I thought “hmmm… enough food.” Do you know how many children in the world can have three meals in a day? Only 1 in 7 children can. When I heard this fact, I was very surprised and shocked.

　　I watched a video about a girl in Philippine. Her name is Monica. She is 12 years old. She lives in a small shack with a sick mother and two younger brothers. Monica is the oldest child in her family. She has to exchange materials from the dumping ground for money. Her body is always dirty. She can’t go to school. They can have a simple meal once in three days. When I saw this, I cried.

　　When I see Japan, I see much food in the garbage. Convenient stores throw away unsold foods. At school I see much school lunch left over. If Monica sees this, what will she think? “Why do you throw away valuable food to eat? I want to give them to my family!” she will say.

　　Every child has the right to live a healthy and happy life. When you hear Monica’s story, what do you think?
Do you think, “Oh, I am lucky to have three meals in a day” or “I have to do something for them. I want more people to know about stories like these. I want to protect their rights to live. I owe it to Monica to tell all
I know about her situation. Now you all know Monica’s story, so please do your part. That is what I want.

Thank you for listening.

Our Challenge / Ishikawa Misa

　　Now the Earth is sick. Whose fault is that? It’s ours. Everyone is involved in some way. If so, what responsibilities do Japanese people have for the current state of our planet?

　　As you can see, a good thing about Japanese people is being ‘considerate’ and ‘servicing’ others. But these polite cultural practices can be quite harmful sometimes. My ALT once said, “I bought a box of cookies for souvenirs, and I found each was INDIVIDUALLY wrapped!” I thought, “What’s the big deal?” But a minute later, I realized that he had a point. Because it was nothing but waste if you look beyond etiquette in our country.

　　Convenient stores are convenient indeed. But you can find lots of wastes there. For example, the piece of
plastic green leaf in obento and packs of chopsticks and a toothpick for FREE. Any ideas why you get them? It
’s the Japanese way of ‘servicing others’.

School lunch is another good example. In the United States, students drink milk straight from the carton, but
in Japan we use straws. Why? Because in Japan, it’s considered rude to drink without straws. And we
sometimes use both spoons and folks for school lunch. It means we need to double the water to wash them. About
four years ago, we had a thing called ‘spork’. What happened to it? Did they get rid of it to teach us
manner? I’m afraid, nowadays schools are where wastes are increasing, not the place to learn how to REDUCE
them.

　　Why do we keep doing these things? Because manner comes first, because our culture is so important. Are these
reasons worth sacrificing our planet? All we need to do is to WEIGH culture and manner against Earth’s well
-being.

　　Think! It’s easy for us not to challenge what is standard, but I’m certain our ways cannot continue forever.
It’s up to me, you and everyone here, to first understand, then change the ‘system’. A day will come when the culture will change itself for the future environment.

Join me.

　Never Too Late　/ Furukawa Ayano

“Ayaka. Hey, Ayaka.”

He stared at me calling someone else’s name. My name is Ayano. I’m not Ayaka. After a while I figured out that he wanted to talk to me. He was my calligraphy teacher, and he was 86 years old. Sometimes he forgot my name.

One day I asked him, “When did you start practicing calligraphy?”

“Let me see…. About 36 years ago, when I was 50,” he said. At that point I wondered why he started so late.

　When he turned 50, he tried really hard to be a good calligrapher. At first, he taught calligraphy to only a few students for free on Saturdays and Sundays. Throughout the years, the number of the students grew. The students ranged from a 5 year old girl to a 70 year old man. They wanted to pay him for the lessons, but he refused. He told them, “I don’t want any money. I just enjoy practicing calligraphy with you. I am doing my best to practice it, because my friends can’t do what they wanted to do. They’re all dead now….. During the war they said to me ‘If we survive the war, we’ll do whatever we want to do.’ I owe them!”

I had finally found out why he began calligraphy so late. When I heard that, it really touched me. He was trying so hard because of his friends, who died. It made me think.

He died last year. I lost my favorite teacher. He taught me a lot. I miss him. But his words live on in my heart. He often said to me, “Ayano, do your best. It’s never too late to start something.” So now, I want to try something new.

His words struck a cord in me; and I took them to heart. Now, whenever I’m discouraged, I think of him and remember his words. “It’s never too late to start something.”

I want to make my old calligraphy teacher proud. I will stand up and do my best for him. “It’s never too late.” I will remember his words forever.

Thank you.