高松市の英会話教室（子供・大人）
Wishing you a very happy New Year from Hankins English.
Last year was tough for everyone and we appreciate your continued support.
We look forward to teaching you again in 2021.
明けましておめでとうございます。
本年もどうぞ宜しくお願い致します。
昨年は大きな変化の年となりました。大変なことも沢山ありましたが、オンラインのレッスン導入で県外に進学された生徒さんとレッスンを再開するなど、良いこともありました。生徒の皆様とのご縁を大切に、本年も精進して参ります。年明けのレッスン楽しみにしています！
素敵な一年になりますように♪
Wishing you a very Happy Christmas from Hankins English.
In the UK Christmas day is a national holiday (祝日) and so most people have the day off.
Generally speaking British people spend Christmas with their families like new year in Japan.
In the morning we usually open our gifts.
Gifts from Santa (in the UK Santa is also called Father Christmas) are sometimes put in a Christmas stocking (クリスマスの長靴下), but families often put presents under a Christmas tree too. In the UK, adults also receive gifts and children get some presents from relatives and friends, so there are often many gifts to display. A lot of families get a real tree from special tree farms.
As Christmas day is a holiday, most people have a special lunch together, not dinner like in Japan. It is usually a very big meal with some kind of roast meat (usually turkey or chicken but sometimes ham or beef) with vegetables and other side dishes. The traditional desert in the UK is a Christmas pudding.
※ イギリスではpuddingはデザートという意味。クリスマスプディングはドライフルーツ、洋酒などが入ったフルーツケーキに近いもの.
The day after Christmas (December 26th) is also a national holiday in the UK. It is called Boxing Day, because in the old days people used to give servants and poor people (使用人や貧しい人たち) gifts (a Christmas box) on this day. You can read more about Boxing Day here: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ボクシング・デー
小学生クラスになると、会話のレッスンとは別に「読み書き」の時間があります。
フォニックスの指導に重点を置いたオリジナル教材を使って「聞く、言う、読む、書く」のステップを段階的に学んでいきます。
低学年クラスでは今《abc (アブク) ソング》という歌を歌ってアルファベットの「音」を学んでいます。
今週は有声音、無声音の違いを喉を触って確認しながら歌いました♪
「ほんまやー‼︎ ノドが震えてないっっ‼︎」
と〈声が出る音〉と〈息だけの音〉があることを発見しました☆
ハンキンズ英語教室もクリスマス仕様になりました☆
お正月、節分、イースター、七夕…と四季折々の飾りつけをし、ハロウィン、クリスマスで締めくくります‼︎
毎年、ハンキンズ英語教室の飾り付けはとっても素敵で、お散歩をしている近所の方々が足を止めて眺めている姿を良く拝見します。
可愛いモノやインテリア大好きなNaoko先生と先生のお母様が毎回、あーでもないこーでもない…と言いながら飾り付けをしてくれています♪
幼児クラスでは
「サンタさん何匹(⁉︎)おるんやろー??」
「one, two… twelve… 12匹‼︎」
と上手に英語で数えて楽しんでいます。
In the UK there are special calendars called Advent calendars that are used to count down the days to Christmas (クリスマスまでの期間に日数を数えるためのカレンダー).
Advent = 待降節の期間 – キリストの降誕を待ち望む期間
Traditionally the Advent season begins on the 4th Sunday before Christmas day (クリスマスの四つ前の日曜日) and ends on Christmas Eve, but most modern advent calendars start on December 1st.
Advent calendars are special because they have small windows on them that you can open for each date and inside you can find pictures or sometimes stories or poems. The calendars usually have a Chistmas or winter theme.
Recently, however, there are many kinds of calendars you can buy, sometimes with sweets or chocolate behind each door or even a small toy.
In the picture above you can see the calendar my children received from their grandparents in the UK this year, which is in a very traditional style.
こどもクラスの講師をしています チヨ です。
今月からレッスンの様子を少しずつブログにて紹介していきたいと思います☆
今週、幼児クラスでは秋にちなんで『Acorns (どんぐり)』を使ってレッスンをしました。
私が近所で拾って来た、たくさんのどんぐりを前にこども達は「きゃ〜♡♡♡」と興奮‼︎
「one, two, three,…」とみんなで数えてみます。
どんぐりコマ (acorn tops) やどんぐりカーでも遊びましたよ。一人ひとり順番に
“Here you are” “Thank you”
と言い合って遊んでいる姿に感動です(涙)
工作が大好きな幼児クラスでは、レッスンでよく折り紙を使います。今日は折り紙でAcorn作り‼︎
“eyes…nose…mouth” と言いながらとっても可愛いAcornが出来ました♪
Happy Halloween from Hankins English!
Modern Halloween has its roots in the Gaelic (ゲール人の) festival of Samhein from Ireland and Scotland.
It is festival that marks the end of the harvest season (収穫期) and the beginning of winter.
Spirits (霊魂) and souls of the dead (死者の魂) were also believed to come back to Earth at this time (like Obon in Japan).
The autumn and scary (怖い) themes of modern Halloween have their roots in these traditions.
Though the roots of Halloween are from the UK and Ireland, modern Halloween celebrations are most popular in North America (America and Canada).
People decorate their houses and children (and often adults too) dress up in costumes (仮装).
They go around their neighbourhood (近所) saying “trick or treat” (「お菓子をくれないといたずらするよ」) to collect candy (or “sweets” as we say in the UK).
They also carve (くりぬき) pumpkins to make into Jack O’Lanterns (カボチャのちょうちん).
In the old days people used to mostly wear scary costumes like ghosts and witches, but now you can see all kinds of characters.
Recently American style Halloween has become a little more popular in the UK, but surprisingly it is much more popular in Japan now.
One very important difference between British and American English that Japanese people need to learn is how we number the floors of a building.
Like in Japan, in America the ground level floor (地面と同じレベルの階) of a building is called the “first floor” (1階), but in British English we call it the “ground floor”. Therefore in British English what is called the second floor (2階) in America is called the “first floor” and the third floor (3階) is called the “second floor”…
This is also true in most European countries, so it is an important point to learn. You don’t want to make a mistake when you are in a building with many floors like a hotel or apartment building. Elevators (or “lifts” in British English) have a button marked “G” for “ground floor”.
This chart chart may help to make it a little clearer:
| 日本 | アメリカ | イギリス |
| 3階 | 3rd floor | 2nd floor |
| 2階 | 2nd floor | 1st floor |
| 1階 | 1st floor | Ground floor |
However, what is even more confusing (ややこしい) is that both British and American English use the same system to talk about how many storeys (何階建て) a building has. Therefore a 3 storey (3階建て) building in America has a first floor, second floor and third floor, but in the UK it has a ground floor, first floor and second floor…
There are many pairs of adjectives (形容詞) that describe emotions (感情を表す) in English, with one word ending in “-ed” and the other ending in “-ing”. They are very useful words but students are often confused (混乱する) about how to use them.
One example is the set of words “bored” and “boring”.
The -ed word bored is used to talk about how a person feels (人の感情):
He is bored – 彼は退屈しています。
The -ing word boring is used to talk about the thing (or person) that causes the emotion (感情の原因）:
The lesson is boring – 退屈な授業です。
Instead of saying “I am bored”, students sometimes make a mistake and say “I am boring” which would mean 「私はつまらない人です」…
To remember how to use these words correctly (正確に), it may be useful to understand their roots (語幹).
All of the -ed / -ing adjective pairs come from verbs (動詞).
For example bored and boring come from the verb “bore” (退屈させる).
Bored is the past participle (過去分詞) of bore and so the phrase “He is bored” could be directly translated (直訳) as 「彼は退屈させられている」.
Boring is the present participle (現在分詞) of bore and so the phrase “The lesson is boring” could be directly translated as 「授業は（彼を）退屈させている」.
Here is a list of a few more useful -ed / -ing pairs:
| bored/boring confused/confusing disappointed/disappointing excited/exciting frightened/frightening interested/interesting surprised/surprising tired/tiring worried/worrying | 退屈している/退屈な 混乱している/混乱させるような がっかりしている/がっかりさせるような 興奮している/興奮させるような 怖がっている/怖い 興味を持っている/興味深い 驚いている/驚くべき 疲れている/疲れさせるような 心配している/心配な |
In the UK the school year ends in July and so the longest holiday of the year is in the summer time – usually about 6 weeks.
Because of this many families go on holiday at this time. In the UK it is generally easier for workers to take time off and so many families go on holiday for a week or even two weeks. Many people go somewhere in the UK, but foreign destinations are also popular, especially nearby European countries like France and Spain.
NOTE: In British English “go on holiday” means “go on vacation” (旅行する)
As the summer season in the UK is quite short, people like to take advantage of (うまく利用する) the warm weather as much as they can by doing things outside. Popular activities include doing barbecues, going on picnics and visiting the beach. The sea is very cold in the UK but people still like to go swimming. Another traditional activity that children enjoy at the beach is building sandcastles (砂の城).
The traditional summer sports in the UK are cricket and tennis and the most famous tennis competition in the world Wimbledon is held in London each year in July.
Some traditional summer foods include strawberries and cream, desserts made with summer fruits and cucumber sandwiches. British people also love ice cream and it is sold everywhere in the summer time. There are even ice-cream vans (アイスクリーム移動販売車) that travel around to sell ice-cream in towns and popular tourist spots.
Though British summer is getting much hotter recently (the record temperature in 2019 was 38.7°C…), the UK is not humid (蒸し暑い) like Japan and so is relatively comfortable (快適) even in mid-summer. The days are also longer (with the latest sunset being at around 9:30pm) and it is much cooler in the evenings than in the daytime.