How to read like a child

高3は名詞の語法。
入試だけ考えたらどうでも良いことなのだろうが、英語らしさ、を気にし始めるとUpgradeの収録語だけでは不十分過ぎるので、綿貫先生のハンドブックから要注意の名詞をリスト。ベネッセの『東大特講リスニング』を書いた時に作った一般名詞のリストも追加で読み上げる。ちょっと時間が余ったので、15年前くらいに作った、語法に注意するべき動詞の10パターンからそれぞれ数例取り上げる。あとは、『グラセン和英』と『ウィズダム英和』を活用せよ。
高2は、助動詞と仮定法、復習のディクテーションと和文英訳12題。異なる文脈で7回以上経験することを目標にしたところで、結局は擬似的経験なのだから、4択とか並べ替えではなく、ディクテーションと和文英訳。結局は同じ力を見ているわけです。もっともらしく言えば、form-formではなく、form-meaningとでもなるのかしら。完成英文をいくつか紹介。

  • Children used to be the bond between husband and wife.
  • There used to be a post office in front of the park.
  • I couldn’t help myself and burst out crying.
  • He said such a funny joke that I couldn’t help laughing.
  • I must have left my hat on the train.
  • He is wise, and he couldn’t have said such a thing.
  • You needn’t have waked me up so early.
  • You should have gone to bed earlier last night.

高1は、私流のthink-aloudのデモ終了。
あれほど言っているのに、まだ和訳をちまちまと書こうとする者がいるのだなぁ。思考の過程を残すのです。数学の問題を解くときだって頭の中にストーリーがあるでしょうに。読解を意味を理解するとかメッセージを受け取るとだけ考えるのではなく、英語という言葉を身に着けるために読む、その言葉を自分の中に取り込むために読むと考えれば、「こんな古文の品詞分解のようなことをやっていて速読できるようになるのだろうか?」などという疑問や弱気の風は吹くことがないように思います。
立体構造を持つ文章をノートという二次元で処理するには工夫が必要で、記号化は単なる構造化を手助けする道具に過ぎません。主題を述べていくメインストリームと、具体例での論証などの傍流との行ったり来たりが出来るためには、今回のように1パッセージで7段落あったら、計14ページ分ノートが必要ということ。初めはスカスカでいいのです。復習の度に絵の具を塗り重ねるが如く、知識を分厚く。けれども柔軟さを失わぬように。

英語教師の多くは、それなりに英文が読めるので、発達段階というものを余り考慮せず、生徒に語彙と文法をたたき込んだら、もうそれで、どんどん英文が読めると思いがちです。
たとえば、今回の模試の英文では、

  • People lived in small groups and often moved from place to place while they looked for wild animals that they could kill and eat.

という文がスラスラ読め、一読で理解できる語彙力と文法力が既に高1段階で身に付いているなら何の苦労もしないでしょう。普通の高校や、普通より学力の達成度が落ちる高校では、生徒の英語力がまだそうはなっていないから、「読み」をデフォルトで内在する活動の際に、語彙も統語も一緒にやらざるを得ないわけです。さらには、「直読直解」とか「英語のまま内容理解」と簡単に済ませられないのは、指示語一つでも日本語と英語の言葉の仕組みが異なるから。この文での “they” が何を指すか、という問いに対して、多くの高校生は英語ではもちろん、日本語でも答えるのは容易ではないように思います。「 “People”に決まっているでしょ」 という答えは論外ですよ。指示語は奥が深い、というのは、次の “this” の処理でもわかります。

  • They did not have much garbage, only ash from their fires and bits of old food. All of this was put into the ground.

これは、“not much garbage they had” などと名詞化をするか、意味を裏返して “only a little garbage they had” などとするわけですが、その際に “they” が指示する内容は?と考えると、精読の意義を見直すことが出来るのではないかと思います。「意味を読んで終わりではなく、言葉を読む」、というこのブログで言い古してきた考え方です。

生徒のレベルではなく、教師のレベルで考えてみるとして、次に取り上げるような類の英文を一読でスラスラと理解できているでしょうか? (手元にある本をランダムに開いてみました)

  • Traditionally, learning researchers have studied learning as if it were a process contained in the mind of the learner and have ignored the lived-in world. This disjuncture, which ratifies a dichotomy of mind and body, sidetracks or derails the question of how to construct a theory that encompasses mind and lived-in world. It is not enough to say that some designated cognitive theory of learning could be amended by adding a theory of “situation,” for this raises crucial questions about the compatibility of particular theories. Nor is it sufficient to pursue a principled account of situated activity armed only with a theory of cognition and good intentions. (Jean Lave, 1996, “The practice of learning” より抜粋。)
  • Having looked at data from various research studies that examine language ability and language use in minority language school-age bilingual children, I am now in a position to draw some conclusions about the fate of the weaker language in these children. Research on older children is scarce and scattered, and a vast majority is based on self-ratings and reports rather than on actual linguistic measures. The few linguistically-oriented studies available and discussed in this chapter show that there are important changes in L1 knowledge when school-age bilingual children socialize and receive academic support in the majority language. But the specific nature of these changes should be pursued with further research. Unfortunately, however, we also know very little about language acquisition during the school age –period in monolingual children. Even though the language acquisition literature states that basic linguistic knowledge is acquired by age 3-4, I see this as an overstatement. Obviously, there are many complex and subtle aspects of grammar, meaning and pragmatics that children do not fully master and comprehend until much later. But these have not received much attention. (Silvina A. Montrul, 2008, Incomplete acquisition in bilingualism: re-examining the age factor より抜粋)
  • If you’re truly bilingual it’s not that there are two languages in your world, but that not everybody understands the whole of your own personal speech. Let me explain. Welsh is my first language. I was born to a Welsh-speaking family living in predominantly English-speaking Cardiff. I remember not being able to understand the children I wanted to play with on the street. I know exactly when I acquired English, as my father taught it to me when my mother went into hospital to have my sister. I was two and a quarter. / Let me give you a quick cultural outline. The Welsh language: a Celtic tongue which has, against all the odds, found itself in the modern world, coining words for ‘television’ and ‘fast reactor fuel rods’. Half a million speakers, numbers in decline – it’s an “all hands on deck” situation. A beautiful language, and to speak it is to know the sound of a long, unbearable farewell. It’s the key to a literature which goes back to the 6th century. One of the noteworthy features of this tradition is a system of strict consonantal alliteration codified into 24 metres and called cynghanedd. Basically, the line gets divided in half and the consonants on each side of the break have to be used in the same order. That is, when the line’s not divided into three and rhyme added to the cocktail. (Gwyneth Lewis, 1995, “Whose coat is that jacket? Whose hat is that cap?” より抜粋)
  • Americans would rather watch a game than play a game. Statement true or false? Why, as to these thousands here today to watch the game and not play it, probably not one man-jack but has himself played the game in his athletic years and got himself so full of bodily memories of experience (what we farmers used to call kinesthetic images) that he can hardly sit still. We didn’t burst into cheers immediately, but an exclamation swept the crowd as if we felt it all over in our muscles when Boyer at third made the two impossible catches, one a stab at a grounder and the other a leap at a line drive that may have saved the day for the National League. We all winced with fellow feeling when Berra got the foul tip on the ungloved fingers of his throwing hand. (Robert Frost, 1956, “Perfect day – a day of Prowess” より抜粋)
  • When something went wrong, when some firemen had not measured up on a particular fire, Callahan said very little. He would call the offending man in to his office and give him what became known among the men as The Look. He would not say anything in the meeting, just stare. When The Look had been turned on, time passed over so slowly. A few minutes would seem like an hour. “It was as if he could look right through you and see everything you had ever done wrong all your life, not just the things that you’d actually done, but all the bad things you had ever thought of doing---every bad thought you’d ever had,” said Sean Newman, a thirty-two-year-old Ladder 35 fireman. Nothing needed to be said---the offender was supposed to know exactly how he had transgressed, and he always did. (David Halberstam, 2002, Firehouse より抜粋。)
  • How to go to the movies: instructions for boy/ At the ticket window, bend knees to appear half a foot shorter and say, “One child.” When the ticket seller asks your age, tell her you’re twelve. She will inform you that you have to be under twelve. “Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, I’m eleven. I’ll be twelve next week.” Smile at her. “Honest.” She doesn’t say anything. “Would I lie to you?” She doesn’t say anything. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you the truth. I’m a senior citizen. I look young for my age. This isn’t my hair. I’m completely bold.” Pay the full price. / Note: If the movie is R-rated, and you have to be seventeen or accompanied by an adult, either ask for a ticket while smoking a cigarette or claim to be the son of the person standing behind you in line. (Delia Ephron, 1981, Teenage romance or how to die of embarrassment より抜粋。)
  • The main point about my father, which might be of interest to people who never knew him, is not that he was interested in pedigree – it was the tiniest part of his interests. It is not that he was a conservative – politics bored him. His interest was confined to resentment at seeing his earnings redistributed among people who were judged more worthy to spend them than he. It is not that he was tortured by class aspirations – heart – warm and compassionate hearts are tow a penny. It is not even that he was a Catholic – there are 550 million of them and a fair number must be Catholics by conviction. It is simply that he was the funniest man of his generation. He scarcely opened his mouth but to say something extremely funny. His house and life revolved around jokes. It was his wit – coupled, of course, with supreme accuracy of expression, kindness, loyalty, bravery and intelligence – which endeared him to everybody who knew him or read his books. (Alexander Waugh, 2004, Fathers and sons より抜粋。)
  • The story of Evelyn Waugh’s quest for a bride is very much a part of his quest for status, too. It is a tale of obstinacy, perseverance, resourcefulness, and eventual success that outdoes Stanley’s search for Livingston. Waugh sought a marriage that would bring him to the top of the hill that he had begun to climb when the jellyfish had changed his plans from suicide to self-protection. / The hill seemed steepest at the bottom. When he first left Oxford, before teaching in Wales, he realized that while he had befriended many of the rich or titled, he did not know their families. He received invitations to the London apartments of his former classmates, but not to their parents’ estates. / But one wellborn family did make him welcome on its own turf, and the experience changed his life. In his last year at Oxford, Waugh met the Plunket Greene brothers. It would have been hard to miss them. (David Lebedoff, 2008, The same man より抜粋。)

本日のBGM: Where are you heading to? (高橋幸宏)