【講師コラム】マデル講師 No.１０　～How Reading Has Helped Me In Honing My English Skills～

オンライン英語スクール Englishbuds 管理人 Mommy Kayo です。

 

今日は金曜日、講師コラムの日です！

 

今日の担当はマデル講師となります。

 

さぁ、マデル講師はどのように英語を身に付けてきたのでしょうか。

 

是非お読みくださいませ～♪

 

Good day, everyone!! I sincerely wish that you are all doing great.. Things here in the Philippines are slowly going back to normal (oh, well, not really the normal life that we used to have). I guess it’s more like many Filipinos have accepted the fact that we don’t have a choice but to shake our fears off and go on, or we’ll end up penniless and hungry.. But I really, really hope that one day soon, we can all go out without needing to wear a mask.
Anyway, today I am going to share how I started learning English, and things helped me improve it. Here in the Philippines, almost all Filipino children learn singing the ABC song and counting from 1 to 10 first the moment we start talking. But that does not mean that most Filipinos are really good at English. Although many of us can read English well, many cannot communicate in straight English, and there are many English words that we are not familiar with. So, it you want to be really good at English, you must study and practice hard..
When I was small, I can still clearly remember that my big sister, Teacher Mel, was always reading me stories. She would read them first in English, and would later translate them into TAGALOG so I could understand them. It was a part of our daily routine then. My mother got married at the age of 18, so she couldn’t finish her studies before having a family. When I was 4, my father decided to send my mom to college. That was also the time I started going to pre-school. My mom was very busy, so my big sister was the one who guided and took care of me during my early years at school. She was already in fourth grade then. I can still remember how much headache I gave her and my teacher at the kindergarten as I really didn’t want to go to school that time. I would always escape from my classroom and run as fast as I could to teacher Mel’s classroom whenever my teacher was looking elsewhere. Then my sister would shyly excuse herself from her class and patiently walked me back to my classroom (which was really far from hers). I can also remember that we were always reading these old English books that she managed to get somewhere every afternoon. After reading those books, she would always write some questions about the story on a piece of paper and ask me to answer them. I can say that it was a very good practice for me then.
The internet was not available yet during that time, and there were no libraries to borrow books from, so it was really difficult to get some materials for learning and reading. But my sister was always getting these books from that scary abandoned classroom, and was always taking them home so we could enjoy reading after doing our homework.
When I was in 4th grade, I started reading long novels. My mom loves reading novels a lot. She used to have tons of them when we were little, and teacher Mel and I used to read them until late at night. I can say that reading English novels is one of my favorite hobbies. You see, reading helped me a lot in improving my English. It also greatly helped in enriching my vocabulary and imagination.. It is something that I never forget to do before going to bed..
I also loved to watch Disney movies when back then ( Oh, well, I still do). There were no CD or DVD players yet when we were small, so we rented a lot of VCD tapes instead. We watched those Disney movies again and again until we memorized almost all the lines of the characters in the movies. Ah.. Those days were probably ones of the happiest memories of our childhood..
I strongly believe that we all have in us to be good at whatever it is that we want to be good at.. Just keep practicing.. Keep believing that YOU CAN DO IT.. Always find time to practice no matter how busy you are.. And surround yourself with people who share the same passion as yours, surround yourself with people who will help you achieve your goal.
Thank you so much for taking time to read my entry, Mommies and Daddies.. Thank you always, Mommy Kayo.. I hope that I somehow inspire you with my story, Mommies and Daddies.. Thank you so very, very, very much for always choosing Englishbuds.. Thank you for all the trust.. We will continue doing our best for you precious little ones.. Take good care and may we all have an amazing and wonderful 2021..

 

今でも大変仲の良い姉妹ですが、

マデルにとってメルはお姉ちゃんでもあり先生でもあり

とにかく頼れる存在なのですね。

 

先週のコラムで

本の虫だったエピソードを紹介してくれたメルですが

マデルもメルの影響を受け、

小さなころから本が大好きで

本はマデルの英語習得にも大切な役割を果たしたようですね。

 

やはり本を読むということは

語彙を底上げしていく上で必要なんですよね。

 

多読というか本を読むことは

とても地味だったり根気がいるだったり

個人で取り組むイメージが強いものだったりします。

 

そういう意味で

わが家が子どもが小さい頃通えた洋書多読教室は

かなり珍しい存在だったかもしれませんね。

そんな教室に通えてラッキーだったかも。

 

そう今は思いますが、

私も最初の最初は

「そんなの習わなくても自分でできる」

と思っていました・・・。

 

確かに本来「本を読むこと」というのは

個人で趣味的な位置づけで

取り組むものだとは思いますし、

そうなってくれるのが理想ではありますが

なかなか日本社会という環境で

洋書絵本、洋書を読んでいくというのは

選ぶ段階から難しかったりします。

 

そう思うと

地味でそんなの個人でやれば？！と思われるところもあるかと思いますが

多読クラスというのが存在する意義というのはあるのかなと思います。

 

皆様のご期待も高い多読・中級者／上級者クラスですが

オンラインという制約にどうやって対応していこうかなぁ・・・と

ない知恵を絞っているところです。

 

理想形はわが家が参加していた多読教室なのですが

思いっきりオフラインのアナログでしたので

マネしようにもできないことがたくさんあって💦

 

ビギナークラスは絵本が短いので

私が手持ちの本をスキャナーで読み取って

オンライン絵本化してご紹介できていますが

中級者以上となるとそのスタイルの踏襲も難しく。。。

 

う～～～ん、もうしばらく悩みます！

 

効果が出るクラスにしたいので

一切妥協せずにオンラインの壁を壊したいなと(^^)

 

これからいろいろ試行錯誤してみま～す。

よいアイデアがある方は是非お知恵をお貸しください♪

 

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