I already knew that
Listeners keep track of what they knew before, what they did not know before, and what they want to know more about as they listen to a presentation.
So you mean...
An idea for an activity based on the game Um, what is...?. I got this idea from Yurie Kumakura.
In pairs, one person tells a story, or makes an argument. The listener stops her from time to time to confirm his understanding. "Okay, so you mean....?" If the listener is correct, the speaker confirms this and moves on. If not, she repeats or clarifies. This can be done in a serious way -- confirming the other person's argument -- or in a silly way, confirming (or misconstruing) the most obvious details.
Hey! Shujinko!
I learned about the history of the japanese word 主人公 shujinko from Yurie Kumakura, a researcher of workers cooperatives in Japan. Goshu Nakanishi, one of the founders of the workers cooperative movement in Japan, used shujinko as an equivalent for protagonismo (which he may have learned from Jose Maria Arizmendiarrietta). The word is common in Zen Buddhism, where it is often translated as "Master," and the story goes that the Chinese monk Zuigan used to talk to himself while meditating, addressing himself, "Hey! Shujinko! Are you sleeping?" or "Hey! Shujinko!
