Video Script — Unit 5

A Nation's Strength

Subject: English | Class: 4 | Series: Leeds (SNC 2020)

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Hello, students! Welcome to Unit 5 of your Leeds English textbook. Today we are going to study a very inspiring poem called "A Nation's Strength" by R.W. Emerson. This poem teaches us what truly makes a nation great and strong.

Let me read the poem for you.

"Not gold, but only men can make, A people great and strong; Men who for truth and honour's sake, Stand fast and suffer long. Brave men who work while others sleep, Who dare while others fly... They build a nation's pillars deep, And lift them to the sky."

This is a short but very powerful poem. Let us understand it stanza by stanza.

In the first two lines, the poet says "Not gold, but only men can make a people great and strong." This means that wealth and money cannot make a nation great. Only the people of a nation can make it great and strong.

In the next two lines, the poet talks about the kind of people who make a nation strong. He says "Men who for truth and honour's sake, stand fast and suffer long." These are people who stand up for truth and respect. They do not give up, even when they have to suffer for a long time.

Then the poet says "Brave men who work while others sleep, who dare while others fly." This means that great people work hard even when others are resting. They are brave enough to face difficulties when others run away from them.

The last two lines say "They build a nation's pillars deep, and lift them to the sky." The word "pillars" means the strong foundations of a building. Just like pillars hold up a building, brave and hardworking people hold up a nation. They build the nation's foundation strong and raise it high.

When we think of Pakistan, we can think of great leaders like Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Allama Iqbal, and many other brave people who worked hard and suffered long to create our country. They stood for truth and honour, and they built the pillars of our nation.

Now let us learn some important vocabulary from this unit. "Great" means excellent or skilful. "Honour" means respect. And "dare" means to be brave enough to do something.

The rhyming words in this poem are: make and sake, strong and long, sleep and deep, fly and sky. Rhyming words are words that have the same ending sound.

In this unit, we also learned about the three sounds of "ed." When we add "ed" to the end of a word, it can be pronounced in three different ways. First, the /id/ sound. When "ed" follows the letter "t" or "d," it is pronounced as /id/. For example, visited and traded. Second, the /d/ sound. When "ed" follows letters like b, g, l, m, n, v, or z, it is pronounced as /d/. For example, arrived and cried. Third, the /t/ sound. When "ed" follows letters like k, s, ch, sh, f, or p, it is pronounced as /t/. For example, looked and placed.

We also learned about gender nouns. There are four types. Masculine gender nouns refer to males, like father, fox, and poet. Feminine gender nouns refer to females, like wife, niece, and queen. Common gender nouns can refer to either male or female, like baby, duck, and doctor. And neuter gender nouns refer to lifeless things, like bus, television, and computer.

We reviewed pronouns as well. Pronouns are words that take the place of nouns. For example, "Ayesha is a kind girl. She always helps the poor." Here, the pronoun "she" replaces the noun "Ayesha."

Let us do a quick recap. The poem "A Nation's Strength" by R.W. Emerson tells us that wealth does not make a nation great. Only brave, hardworking, and honest people can make a nation strong. We learned vocabulary like great, honour, and dare. We practised the three sounds of "ed," classified nouns by gender, and reviewed pronouns.

Remember, each one of you can help make our nation strong by being honest, hardworking, and brave. Thank you for watching!