日本語でなら読書が好きな人でさえ
英文リーディングは敷居が高い、腰が重い（？）と感じる人がほとんどです。

学習者がリーディングを「いやだな」と感じるのには理由があります。
ズバリ下記のふたつです。

１　単語がわからない（辞書をいちいち引くのが面倒）
２　内容に興味がない

思い当たりませんか？
TOEICなど試験対策としては当然興味のない内容を
読まなければいけなくなるのですが
会話力向上のため根本的に英語力の底上げをしたい場合
本当に興味のある内容、面白いと思える素材を選んで読んでいく必要があります。


１を回避するために 全く興味のないあまりにも簡単な
子供が読むような絵本を読もうとして見たことがないでしょうか。

読むのがツラいのは難易度の問題ではないかもしれません。

素材に問題がないかまず見直してみましょう。
そして少し興味が持てるような内容を
自ら選んで読んでいくように心がけてみることがとにかく大切です。

・・・話が戻りますが
単語がわからないために読むのが辛いと言うのには実は回避策があります。

これは 試験対策の 勉強のやり方としても私がよく紹介するやり方なのですが
聞いたことがあるでしょうか？


まず、「知らない単語を先に抜き取る」と言うやり方です。

何も考えずに知らない単語を全て洗い出します。
リストになった状態のものを辞書を引いて横に意味を書いておきましょう。
この状態が出来上がったところでリーディングを開始します。

今回は、既に受講していらっしゃる方ならなおさら
きっと興味を持っていただけるだろう内容を下記に用意しました。
私が書いたエッセイです。

我が家には猫が2匹います。

２０２２年７月現在
４８ワードをアウトプットすることができます。
話せるんです。英語がわかります。

「？？？」と思った方、動画がインスタにあるので是非みてみてください。

Hello,
I'm Coco, and let me introduce my amazing kittens, Ava and Gaia. 
We live in Tokyo, Japan.
They were born on July 17th, 2021 - 11 months old now and have mastered
almost 50 words (a few words still need training).


They are fearless and amaze me every day! 
They love hanging out in the yard saying hi to every stranger,
going for a walk, going places, doing tricks, and talking with the buttons. 
They are so chatty that it's a lot of work for me to keep the log! 
... my journey with them began even before they came to my house...

I did volunteer work for about a year to foster rescue puppies and kitties
temporality at home before the organization found their forever-homes. 
It was a wonderful experience until when I had to give up on the two boys
that I raised from 50 days to 7 months old. 
It was too painful to let them go even if they found the perfect foster family. 
It took me a few months to overcome the pain and I started thinking about getting my own pets,
not as a temporary foster mom. 

In the meantime, my sister's acquaintance sheltered a pregnant girl
that was a stray in her neighborhood and had 7 babies!!! 
I immediately sent a message that I want to adopt two boys,
since I learned from the previous experience how sweet male cats are (need to be neutered.. of course). 

Here they are(above the essay)↑↑↑
Those are Ava and Gaia.I adopted them officially on August 30th, 2021.
I ran into the first famous talking dog, Bunny's TikTok videos,
before they came and got stunned!!
I ordered big-o buttons on Amazon as I was getting ready to welcome them.
Both of their names sound female but

"Ava" is actually a male name in the western African Akposo language meaning Heaven.
"Gaia" means Mother Earth in ancient Greek

so I named them after the term "Heaven on Earth". 
Well, it's my personal belief, that heaven is the earth and the earth is the heaven! 
They are Heaven on Earth and Heaven & Earth.

I introduced 4 buttons from day one, Food - Milk - Water - Outing. 
They responded when I pressed but didn't know
how they can use them to express themselves. 
I was waiting for them to naturally start using but
it hadn't happened for a while.

Both of them are originally fast learners. 
I taught them a few tricks and learned quickly. 
It was a pretty good interaction so when I was thinking of teaching them a new trick,
one thought dawned on me. 
"I should seriously teach them how to use buttons instead of teaching them more tricks..." 
tricks are fun but button training definitely serves us in a more beneficial way.
Why don't we seriously start button training?
It was a no-brainer.

The first push took a bit.
It was in the middle of January 2022,
that they began expressing themselves with the buttons and after that,
they learned more and more words in a flash!

I have the video that caught Gaia's first push on Instagram:

I feel joy from them every time I add a new button. 
I am so proud of them and this is a wonderful wonderful opportunity to let people know
the new perspective on the animal's language cognitive abilities!

As I am speaking to them in about 80 % English and 20 % Japanese,
they sometimes show me really interesting reactions depending on the language.