〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓 2010.2.12発行.No20（毎週金曜日発行）〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓〓

　　 株式会社 セイガンスピーク メールマガジン

Sagan Speak Co., Ltd English Educational Newsletter

(このＨＴＭＬメールはインターネットに接続した状態でご覧下さい)

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このメールは、これまでの弊社とお名刺を交換させて戴いた学校関係者様にお送りしています。

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■　今 週 の Ｉ Ｎ Ｄ Ｅ Ｘ

１．気になる最近のニュース

２．各学校様からの外国人講師派遣のご相談で感じること

３．日本の中の不思議な英語表現(その３)　

４．スティーブン自叙伝(第１１話その３)

５．編集後記(メルマガ編集者らによる雑感コーナー)

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〓１．気になる最近のニュース〓

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無償化…私立高、逆に競争率上昇　関西３府県で入試始まる

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/life/education/100210/edc1002101100001-n1.htm

会社説明会に教育委員会参加へ、教師の魅力ＰＲ

http://www.asahi.com/edu/news/TKY201002060233.html

私立高合格、ネット発表１割の理由とは…

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/life/education/100211/edc1002110006000-n1.htm

介護系への進学急増…高い就職率人気

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/kyoiku/news/20100212-OYT8T00459.htm

学費滞納で卒業不可や中退　困窮生徒に支援の輪

http://www.asahi.com/edu/news/TKY201002080088.html

学力テスト、我が街も受けたい　「自主参加」の希望続々

http://www.asahi.com/edu/news/TKY201002080117.html

５００人の授業料全額免除　兵庫・大手前大、通信教育課程

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/life/education/100210/edc1002102127003-n1.htm

高校授業料の滞納分、貸し出し検討　中退回避へ厚労相

http://www.asahi.com/edu/news/TKY201002090507.html

教職員ボーナス削り奨学金工面　上智大、年１０万円支給

http://www.asahi.com/edu/news/TKY201002050418.html

環太平洋大の認可申請で不正　文科省、創志学園を処分

http://sankei.jp.msn.com/life/education/100206/edc1002060057000-n1.htm

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〓 ２．各学校様からの外国人講師派遣のご相談で感じること(その２)〓

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　　日々の業務のなかで各学校様から外国人講師に関するご相談を受けております。そんな

　中で今週に弊社が受けたご相談をご紹介いたします。

　●「学校のホームページに外国人派遣講師の内容を詳しく掲載したいが、どうだろうか？」

　　→なるほど、各学校様のＨＰに外国人英語教師の充実ぶりをアピールすることはよくあり

　　ます。確かに、広告代理店アサツーディーケイが２００７年に実施した「中学受験と親子

　　の生活・意識」という調査の中で、保護者が中学受験で参考にする情報源の第一位として、

「中学校のＨＰ」を挙げています。二位以下の「塾の先生」、「学校案内」、「その学校

入学者の保護者と評判」を大きく引き離していることも興味深いものがあります。その意

味で、ご相談はごもっともな内容でした。しかし、派遣講師は直接採用の講師と異なり在

校期間が流動的です。さらに、責任あるお立場の校長先生等は別にして、日本人の先生方

同様に、外国人も名前や顔写真の掲載を拒む場合があります。また、こうした情報開示に

に効果が見いだせない場合もあります。であれば、講師の個人的情報の開示よりもむしろ

、学校全体の取り組みやカリキュラムの紹介の方が情報を求める保護者の満足が得られ

る場合が多いでしょう。特に、英語という科目は、各学校様の独自色が打ち出しやすく、

どの学校様も個性的で特色のあるカリキュラムを組まれております。当然、保護者にとっ

ても非常に大きな関心事の一つとなっておりますが、外国人講師の姿形・国籍・特技など

よりも、その外国人講師が単なる飾りではなく学校のカリキュラムの中で機能しているど

うかに注目が集まっております。従いまして、学校様は、こうした保護者の興味を満たす

ようなＨＰにするべきでしょうし、例えば、昨年の各教育誌への掲載以来の様々な方面か

ら反響があった弊社開発の新英語教育システム「リンクインシステム」をもって、英語教

育を革新的に取り組む姿勢をアピールするのも一つの方法になのかもしれません。

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　 〓　３．日本の中の不思議な英語表現(その３)　〓

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私たち日本人が外国に訪れてみると、街の中で不思議で不適切な日本語に出会うことがあ

りませんか？同じように、ここ日本でも外国人が不思議で不適切な英語表現を見ることもあ

るでしょう。そんな事例をここでご紹介いたします。先日、都内の駅地下の洋菓子店が次の

ような英文広告が書いてある看板を掲げていました。今回、その英文広告の添削を試みます。

MOCHI CREAM (JAPANESE SWEETS DELI)

Introducing “MOCHI CREAM ”with delicious creamy filling.

Available in a variety at enchanting flavours.

Cafe ole, green tea, chocolate, apple, and much more.

Bon appelite!

この洋菓子店は、大福餅の中にクリームが入った「和スイーツ」を売っておりまして、お店

の佇まいを見れば、我々日本人はこの英文メッセージが何を訴えたいのかを十分察すること

ができます。しかし、ネイティブスピーカーから見ると、不適切な個所があります。そこで、

下記の赤文字箇所を添削しました。

MOCHI CREAM (JAPANESE SWEETS DELI)

Introducing “MOCHI CREAM ”with delicious creamy filling,

available in a variety of delightful flavors,

such as cafe au lait, green tea, chocolate, apple,and many more.

Bon appétit！

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　〓　４．スティーブン自叙伝(第１１話その４)　〓

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■連載形式で好評掲載中の弊社・スティーブン・オーストウィックの自叙伝のコーナーです。

今回も先週号の続きです。Conkering concluded

 It was common for mates to call on other mates in a morning to walk to school together.

Mike Hutton, one of my old mates, would always be knocking on my door at just before

eight every school day morning for me to walk to school with him.  We would then call on

Adi who lived just around the corner from me.  The good thing about calling on Adi in a

morning, apart from the fact that he was one of my best mates, was that he lived in a house

that cut everybody’s walking time to school by half.  All we had to do was walk to the end

of Adi”s garden and then walk an additional 100 metres and we then connected with the

road that faced onto our school, another 10 minutes walking and we were at the school

gates total walking time 15 minutes - the normal way to school would take us 30 minutes

or so.  This meant that all the mates in my group could get at least an extra 15 minutes

or so in bed, which considering the low temperatures we used to wake up to, this meant a

lot.  In actual fact at times Adi had other boys at our school approach him asking him if

they could walk through his garden to school – Adi was offered sweets, fireworks

( only near Bonfire Night – in the UK one can only buy fireworks from shops in October

and early November ), Adi was even offered money on one occasion, but he always said no.

If ever Adi was absent from school, which was very rare, we still called on him and either

he or his mum would answer the door and let us through his home so we could walk

through his garden to school.

　At Adi’s we pulled out our conkers to compare sizes, shapes and the way that they were

threaded through a piece of string.  Mine and Mike’s conkers were pretty similar, big,

shiny and hard with very clean holes bored through and big notes tied, so the conker

would not easily be pulled through when in battle.  Adi’s conker, however, was small,

shriveled up and very hard, extremely hard , it didn’t look like much of a threat to any

other conker, but it was.  It was about 2 years old and it had been soaked in vinegar

and then baked in the oven for a short time, it was somewhat battle scarred, it had had

most of its shell smashed off, but apart from that it was intact – Mike and I would not be

playing against Adi as we knew we would easily get beaten – our conkers had not been

soaked in vinegar nor baked in the oven, we were purists and we were out to see how

well we could do against similar conkers.  The only time I would soak conkers in

vinegar and then bake then was if I managed to win all my conker battles and have a

champion current season conker.  This happened to me once, my conker became a niner

which means it beat 9 other conkers, the last conker it beat was a Laggie, the Laggie I

beat was pretty well smashed up when we went into battle so it was an easy win.

　On the way to school we saw lots of boys, some younger than us, the same age and

older than us having conker battles on their way to school – the teachers must have

dreaded conker playing season because of all the lateness that occurred.  We were

eager to get to school and into the playground because that was where the real action

was. When we got there there were conker battles going on all over the playground, it

looked really good and we were all very excited.  There were even teachers in the

playground watching and getting involved in giving advice to certain boys on how to

stand and how to hold there conkers – they were reliving their youths and they were

enjoying every minute of it.  We split up and went to different parts of the playground

to try to get a match with someone.  We had about 20 minutes remaining before the

bell was due to ring and we had all managed to get a match, I easily beat another

one-er which made my conker a two-er, and my conker was virtually unscathed. 

Mike lost to a three-er and Adi beat another Laggie – the Laggie Adi beat had

previously beaten 28 conkers which now made Adi’s conker a forty-eight-er – there

was a lot of buzz about this and as the bell went and we all started to go into the

school and into our classrooms we heard some older boys talking about Adi’s conker

 – from the chat it seemed Adi was going to be in for quite a few matches during lunch

time.

　Lunch time finally came and after wolfing down the main course and the pudding

we were back out into the playground and looking for matches.  I had 5 matches

during lunch time and won them all. I was doing very well, my conker was now a six-er,

but it was now badly beaten up and I knew that it was not going to win any more

battles, actually just before the bell rang to end lunch time I lost to a two-er and my

opponent,s conker then became an eight-er – I was pretty satisfied with my

performance though.  Mike was watching Adi up against a big current season conker

and the boy he was playing was an older boy, the older boy seemed to think that the

extra strength he had would mean that he would easily beat Adi’s conker – he was

obviously not very conker savvy because the harder he smashed Adi’s conker the more

he smashed his own conker – the result was inevitable – Adi still had his conker on the

string and the other conker was off the string, on the floor and in pieces. As I have

already mentioned, I was never into the Laggie thing, playing conkers for me was about

carefully preparing and then playing with current season conkers – if I were bringing

my children up in England I would be able to teach them all I know about conker

playing, but as I live in Japan this may never happen, not unless I get an opportunity

to go back to the UK in October.

As far as I know the game of conkers is not played in Japan, but if anyone has any other

information to the contrary I would love to hear about it, maybe another similar game is played,

but with different  types of nuts or vegetables of some sort.  As a substitute, I wonder if we

could use the edible chestnuts that are available in Japan - I think I will look into the possibility

of doing this.  If any one reading this story has any interesting stories connected to their

conkering exploits I and all the other newsletter readers would love to hear them.   Thank you

in advance for reading my meager and often rushed offerings and I will be back with the finger

on the keys next week to write something else from my early childhood that just might interest you.           

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〓　５．編集後記(メルマガ編集者らによる雑感コーナー)　〓

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　■日本人学生の米国留学希望者が減っていることをご存じでしょうか？その理由として、日

本の少子化に伴う２０歳代の人口減少を関連付けてしまいがちですが、日本以上に深刻な少

子化が進む韓国では、むしろ逆に急激に米国への留学希望者が増加しています。この背景に

は、韓国経済にとって国民の英語力の向上が国益をもたらすという考え方があるようです。

その証拠に、一昨年に韓国経済界出身の李明博大統領が日本円にして３２００億円もの国費

を投じる「英語公教育完成計画」を発表しております。さらに韓国の私立学校では、競って

授業の英語化を進めており、特に韓国の早稲田大学といわれる高麗大学(キムヨナ選手も在学

)では２００９年に４０％を達成、２０１０年までに５０％を目標に、新しい教員は英語で公

開講義が出来ないと採用しないとまで言い切っています。そんな英語教育に熱心な韓国が、

先月、アラブ首長国連邦の原子力発電所建設競争入札で技術が格上の日本に競り勝ちました。

原発事業というのは施設の建設後でも長期間にわたって運営請負・維持管理・保守・点検と

いった付随的追加業務が期待できる高収益事業であり、不況で内需が期待できない日本経済

にとって、是非とも手にしたい外貨獲得手段でした。加えて、今週火曜日、ベトナムの原発

受注競争で、またしても日本は敗退しました。今後も、次世代を担う日本の若者と外国の若

者とが熾烈な競争を続けることになると思いますが、留学希望者が減った日本と留学希望者

が増えた国、競争を制するのは一体どちらなのでしょうか？

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　本メールは、株式会社セイガンスピークより発信しております。

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