Gavin Shyroc ’28, recipient an award from the Japanese Consulate
General.
Gavin Shyroc ’28 recently won a special award from the Japanese consulate general through a Japanese speech and essay contest. The contest itself was sponsored by the Boston branch of the Japanese consulate general, which is located in the Japanese embassy. The constraints of the contest included a character count under 800, and limitations on the length of time participants could have lived in Japan or spoke Japanese at home. It was introduced to Shyroc by Ms. Teruyo Shimazu. The pair dedicated their time and energy into creating an essay that discussed the importance of multiculturalism and interaction with foreign languages.
Shyroc discussed the premise of the contest, as well as how dedicated preparation helped him address the difficulties of writing in another language. He stated that one of his main reasons for choosing to enter the competition was for the practice of the language itself.
“The competition was generally focused on essays and speeches talking about the benefits of multiculturalism and what can be gained from interacting with a foreign language. A particularly unique point was that the essays were intentionally very short. They could not be over 800 characters, which translates to one side of a page, so it was definitely a challenge to create something that was meaningful but also compact… the difficulty was expected, but also welcome. I participated in this specifically because my goal was to work on my writing [because] much of my fluency is predominantly spoken. I’m a much better speaker of Japanese than I am a writer or reader of Japanese,” said Shyroc.
His instructor and the person who introduced the competition to Shyroc, Ms. Teruyo Shimazu, elaborated on the details of the writing process.
“I announced this opportunity to my students and Gavin thought this was a good opportunity for him to try. He started working on it. He is in the 600 class, so when he wrote it, we shared it with the classmates and asked for feedback on the contents. Then Gavin started editing according to the feedback. Because I don’t think it’s fair that I just pitch in and edit for him, I just talked about some formats. His work is his authentic work. Gavin is not a native speaker, but he’s just into it. He goes beyond the work, beyond the class, and he just keeps doing and doing and doing. It’s really rewarding for me,” said Shimazu.
Having only taken two years of Japanese at Andover, Shyroc elaborated on where most of his Japanese experience came from.
“This is actually the first time I’ve submitted for an essay competition in any language, actually. That being said, I feel like I definitely had a very firm grasp of the mechanics of the language… I attended, for the past four years now, an immersion camp based in Minnesota, run by Concordia College. The staff speak exclusively Japanese. It’s a fantastic experience, both because it’s a very legitimate and sincere interaction with the language, which is super hard to get in the US,” said Shyroc.
Shyroc offered his perspective on how new technology, even on Andover’s campus, can affect the way languages are learned.
“You’re learning a culture as well as a language, and it’s very important to do that with other people. That’s part of the reason that Andover is an amazing community. Because we have so many people from so many different places, there will be at least one other person who’s interested in obtaining fluency in the language you’re interested in, unless you’re interested in speaking something really obscure. Take advantage of the community that is being offered to you and find other people who are interested in learning that language because real conversational practice is the best thing you can do,” said Shyroc.
Both Shyroc and his instructor encouraged students to participate in these events to realize that language is more than a grade on a transcript. Shimazu especially emphasized that students should enter competitions outside the Andover bubble to remember there is more out there.
“You would get to envision what your achievement on campus is in comparison to the regional and national level. You would get to understand that what you are studying is not only for the transcript, but also the actual usage. And then, being at the ceremony, you get to hear other people’s essays and other people’s speeches,” said Shimazu.
