Tadoku - Let's Read! Course Introduction Video (and transcript)

Tadoku (多読), also called Extensive Reading, is the practice of learning a foreign language by reading lots of easy books. It's a really fun way to explore the Japanese language, without feeling pressure to understand every word.

This footage is from the 2019 Tadoku Summer Course at Step Up Japanese in Brighton, UK. In summer 2020, we also held our first Online Tadoku course.

Thanks to Daniel Sheen for making this video!

Watch the video, or scroll down to read a transcript. Click "CC" to turn on the subtitles 👍

What is Tadoku?

David: Tadoku is the practice of reading lots and lots of books, with the focus being on skipping things you don’t understand.

Fran: I think that lack of pressure’s really important, isn’t it? Skipping things, and… it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand everything.

Let’s take a look inside a Tadoku class at Step Up Japanese (filmed in 2019):

Fran: What did you read today? How was it? What was your favourite part? What was your least favourite part?

Snippets from students’ conversations about books:

A: I work in a publishing company – we make books – and this is from my publishing company.

B: Oh really?

A: And that one, yeah.

C: She’s actually a ghost! Oh no! And he’s really scared.

What do you like about Tadoku?

Sara: It’s quite nice just to kind of come back from work and just sit and you’re getting your practice in but it doesn't feel quite so much like practice, because you are focusing on the story, and I quite like the whole rules of the whole thing, which is like, you know, don’t sit there looking words up, just try and work it out from the context of it all, but yeah, I do actually sit and enjoy little stories more, that way.

David: I enjoy Tadoku, as it gives me the opportunity to read Japanese, without the pressure of understanding every single word.

Fran: I really like that experience as well, like you’re reading a book and then like a couple pages on you’re like “Oh, that’s what that word means!” – you didn’t need to look it up.

Sara: It’s like a little gold star for yourself as well, like: “Oh, I did know that!”

Would you recommend Step Up Japanese?

David: I would recommend Step Up Japanese to friends and family, and have. I really enjoy classes, I really enjoy the teacher, I really enjoy all of the students as well, it’s just like a really friendly bunch, and I’d like for more people to be part of the Step Up Japanese family.

2019 Summer Party!

Thank you so much for coming to our 2019 student summer party this year! We had a sunny, relaxing day on Brighton beach and even went for a paddle in the water.

I hope you enjoy these sunny photos of this happy day!

ブライトンの日本語教室で手伝ってくれる素晴らしいボランティアの皆さん

（英語版はこちら Click here to read this article in English）

ブライトン近郊に住んでいる日本人から「ステップアップジャパニーズでボランティアできますか？」というメールを時々いただきます。

こういうメールをいただいて、私は毎回とても嬉しく思います。近くに住んでいる日本人が私の日本語教室を見つけて、しかも手伝いに行きたいと思ってくださることは、とてもありがたいと思います。

今年度、日本人のボランティアは授業に手伝いに来てくださっただけではなく、イベントやワークショップも一緒に開くことができました。

イギリスのボランティア・ウィーク(Volunteers’ Week)をご存知ですか。毎年６月１日〜７日に行われる感謝のキャンペーンです。手伝ってくださるボランティアの皆さんに感謝を込めて「ありがとう」とお伝えする一週間です。

それでは、２０１９〜２０年のボランティアの皆さんへ大きな「ありがとう！」をお伝えしたいと思います。

サマープログラムに手伝いに来てくださったありあさんへ。

生徒たちと一緒にゲームをしながら、「ホットドッグ」の正しい発音を教えてくださってありがとうございます。

STEP 1（初級）とSTEP 2（初級２） の生徒さんと優しく話して、自信を持たせてくださった真里さんへ。

そして先月、素晴らしい折り紙のワークショップを一緒に開いてくださったさやさんへ。

皆さん、ありがとうございました！

A Japan Pub Quiz!

I wrote a little bit about my Japanese volunteers who come to help out at class and with events and workshops.

But I’m also helped enormously at Step Up Japanese by my students, who organise events, give me great ideas, and share helpful feedback on how to make class better.

Huge thanks to STEP 4 student Sheen-san for organising this fantastic Japan-themed quiz for us last week. And thank you all for coming!

またしましょうね。Let’s do it again sometime!

Our Fantastic Volunteers

（Click here to read this article in Japanese 日本語版はこちら）

Sometimes, Japanese people contact me and ask if they can volunteer at Step Up Japanese.

I’m always very happy that Japanese people in Brighton and Hove have found my school and want to visit and help out.

This year, a number of Japanese volunteers have helped out in class and with events and workshops.

This Volunteers Week, I’d like to say a big thank you to my 2018-19 volunteers!

Aria-san, who came to help out with Summer Programmes in 2018. Thank you for playing games with my students and teaching them how to say ホットドッグ (hotto doggu; hot dog):

Mari-san, for chatting with STEP 1 and STEP 2 students and encouraging them to speak with confidence:

And Saya-san, for teaching us incredible origami!

I Tried to Speak Japanese Every Day for a Month (Without Being in Japan)

Many people believe you need to live abroad to get speaking practice in a foreign language, but this isn’t true.

Similarly, people often assume that if you live in Japan, like I did, you’ll pick up the language easily. But that’s not necessarily true either.

If you speak English, it’s possible - indeed easy - to live in another country for years and not become fluent in the language.

I didn't make any year-long New Years’ Resolutions this year. Instead, I decided to set myself some monthly language-related challenges. I’ll decide them as the year goes on, and I’ll probably do one every other month.

In January, I decided to speak Japanese every day for a month.

For context: I live in the UK, I don’t speak Japanese at home, and although I work as a Japanese teacher, I don’t currently teach Japanese every day. So this was going to take some effort.

When I lived in Japan, I was using Japanese every day. My Japanese reading and writing is significantly better now than it was then (I have five years’ more practice under my belt). But I don’t speak Japanese every day like I used to. So I decided to try!

I set myself the following, slightly arbitrary, rules:

1) Speak in Japanese for a minimum of 15 minutes a day (ideally more)

2) Texting doesn't count

3) Talking to yourself doesn't count either*

*Incidentally, I am a big fan of talking to yourself as a method of practicing a language. But I decided it wouldn’t count for this challenge.

Day 1

Every year on January 1st the Brighton Japan Club has a New Year’s swim in the sea. A great opportunity to practice different words for “ohmygodit’sfreezing” .

I don't swim this year, just go along afterwards for a post-swim lunch and some Japanese- and English-language chat in a café.

Tip number 1: Find people to speak with. You can’t practice speaking by yourself. Could you join a group class or a social club?

Photo from last year’s New Year’s Day Swim (2018). Photo by Tom Orsman

Day 2

I get up an hour early and have a 30 minute italki lesson on Skype before work. Italki is a website and app where you can find online language teachers.

I plan to start teaching on Skype in 2019, possibly using italki, so I take the opportunity to ask the teacher all about italki and how she finds it. The teacher is friendly and I have fun talking with her. I’ve never met her before – I just found her on italki.

Day 3

I go to the weekly Japanese-English Language Exchange with Brighton Japan Club. It’s a good way to meet Japanese people, and people interested in Japan. There’s usually a good mix of old and new faces, which keeps things fresh.

Day 4

I have dinner with a Japanese friend I met last month at the end-of-year party of the Brighton & Hove Japanese Club (a similarly named but different group to the Brighton Japan Club). We go to Goemon, arguably Brighton’s best ramen bar. We talk in Japanese all night.

Day 5

I go to 書き初め kakizome (first calligraphy of the year) at Brighton Japan Club. I don't speak much Japanese at this event and on the way home I wonder if it ‘counts’… I have a lot of fun though.

Day 6

I Skype with a friend in Japan, who I met when I lived in Nagoya. This was probably the most fun thing I did all week. I saw her last spring, so catching up over video chat, there is a lot to talk about.

I reflect that being able to talk with friends in Japanese is really important to me.

Tip number 2: make friends who speak the language you’re learning

Day 7

I have a 30 min italki “instant lesson” with teacher S. She used to live in Canada where she ran language exchange events. She’s thinking about studying abroad in the UK, so we chat about that. She talks quickly, and so do I, happily and unthinkingly.

Day 8

I go to Café an-an in Portslade for lunch. I chat briefly with the owner, Noriko, while eating katsu curry. I take home some 花びら餅 hanabira mochi (“flower-petal mochi”) sweets.

After lunch I have a video meeting scheduled with Jess from Nihongo Connection. We chat in Japanese for the first half of the call - Jess is British, so I wasn't expecting to talk with her in Japanese, but its fun. We make plans to meet up the following month in Edinburgh.

Day 9

Skype lesson with Sugita-sensei. I met Sugita-sensei at Yamasa in Okazaki, where I studied on the Advanced Japanese Studies Program in 2014. Now, I consider myself lucky to call him a friend as well as 先輩 (senpai; senior colleague) and teacher. When I have time, I usually have a Skype lesson with him once a week. We read fiction and news articles, and sometimes I write stories or essays and we work together to correct them.

Day 10

I’m going to London for the day, to the video-games exhibition at the V&A and to see Macbeth. I have an italki lesson with teacher H in the morning. I ask her how I can improve my speaking. She says the goal “improve my speaking” is too broad, and I agree. She suggests I should think about what kind of speaking I want to get better at; and what I want to be able to talk about. Then, focus in on those topics, by reading about them. This seems like very good advice.

Tip number 3: find a good teacher

Day 11

I go out for dinner with a Japanese friend and a Spanish friend. We switch between speaking English and Japanese all night.

Day 12

I spend the day out with my boyfriend and some friends. My boyfriend can speak Japanese, but we don’t speak Japanese together, because - well, just because we don’t.

We get home at 11:45pm and I realise I haven’t spoken any Japanese yet today. Reluctantly, my boyfriend agrees to speak Japanese with me until midnight. We set a timer for 15 minutes and I pour him a beer.

Day 13

I go to Brighton Japan Club’s annual new-year mochi-making event. My favourite events are the ones involving food! I eat squishy rice cakes and chat with some new people.

Day 14

I have an italki lesson at 7am with a new teacher, T. This is the only italki lesson I had that wasn’t really for me. He suggests some resources that are way too low a level for me and a Japanese grammar website with picture explanations that I think are kind of unclear.

I take this as a useful lesson in how not to teach on Skype.

Day 15

Term starts today, which means I teach STEP 1 (beginner) and STEP 2 (upper beginner) Japanese classes on Tuesday nights. STEP 1 students are doing a quiz about which country well-known brands are from. STEP 2 students practice asking each other to do things, which is always fun.

On the way home I wonder if teaching beginner level classes counts as speaking practice for me. Probably not, but I decide to let it count for this experiment anyway. It’s still three hours of Japanese time.

Day 16

7am Skype class with Sugita-san. We read a section on “Friendship” from Tsurezuregusa (徒然草, Essays in Idleness), a collection of essays written by the Japanese monk Yoshida Kenkō in the 14th century, and talk about it.

Day 17

I teach two more Japanese classes, STEP 3 and STEP 4, at pre-intermediate and intermediate level.

My higher-level classes usually need a bit less structure than beginner classes. I still speak more slowly than natural speech, but I don't plan the wording of my instructions in the same way as I do with beginner classes. Especially in STEP 4, students like to chat and always have good questions, which they can ask in Japanese.

Tip number 4: ask questions!

Day 18

I’m going to my office job 9-5 today (no chance to speak Japanese there), and to a birthday party afterwards (no Japanese speakers). So I get up at 7am and have another italki lesson with M-sensei. We talk about Brexit…

Day 19

I go to a Heart Sutra writing workshop with the Brighton Japan Club. The workshop is in Japanese with English interpretation. I have fun listening along to both.

Day 20

I Skype with another Japanese friend in Japan. She had a baby recently, so a lot has changed for her. She fills me on her new life. After our conversation, I walk around all day with a huge smile on my face.

Day 21

Another italki lesson with M-sensei. She is an ex TV announcer, so I ask a bunch of questions about pitch accent. (Briefly: Japanese has high-low tones, and pronouncing a word with the wrong pitch accent pattern makes you sound unnatural).

She says that my pitch is mostly good but I make occasional pitch and stress mistakes which identify me as a non-native speaker.

Like many non-native speakers, I have never explicitly learned Japanese pitch accent, and I think this is probably something I should rectify. She has me read an article from NHK news, and corrects my pitch accent. It’s hard.

I also go to see a Japanese film with another of my students – 君の名は (kimi no na wa; ‘Your Name’). We see another former student of mine in the foyer and speak briefly in Japanese.

Day 22

I teach two beginner classes. STEP 1 students are practicing verbs like 行きます、来ます、帰ります　(ikimasu, kimasu, kaerimasu; go / come / come back), so I have them read a short story about my trip to Disneyland last year.

I am reminded that reading helps with speaking. We need to be exposed to lots of language in order to eventually produce it.

STEP 2 students are learning about giving directions. Confession: I find teaching directions really hard. I used to practice this by playing video games (students shout out directions while one person is playing), but the flash game wont work on the classroom computer any more. I consider switching this up next year.

I think more about input/output. How useful is it for my students to learn to give directions in Japanese? Not very. How useful is it for them to understand verbal directions in Japanese? If they go to Japan, probably very useful.

Tip number 5: Read! There can be no meaningful output without input.

Day 23

I ask Sugita-san more about pitch accent. He is currently teaching on a course for people studying to become Japanese teachers in Okazaki, Japan. He says many Japanese people don’t explicitly understand pitch accent either.

My boyfriend shows me a video series on Japanese phonetics by Dogen, the Japanese teacher and YouTuber. I go on an internet deep dive into pitch accent. Maybe that will be my next challenge…?

Day 24

I teach two Japanese lessons. In STEP 3 (lower-intermediate) we cover short forms in casual speech. I love teaching this because it’s so ridiculously useful and common in everyday speech. It’s not in the textbook we use at all, so I made my own materials.

Day 25

I go to the pub again with my Spanish friend and Japanese friend. Japanese friend is going back to Japan the following day. He has also, excitingly, just become a father. Lots to talk about. As before, we probably talk about half in English and half in Japanese.

Day 26

I go to an 生け花 ikebana (flower arranging) workshop with the Brighton Japan Club. The workshop is in English, but I chat with the organisers in Japanese a bit.

I have to rush off as I am going to see the film 万引き家族 (Manbiki Kazoku; Shoplifters) with my student in Eastbourne. I love hanging out wth my adult students outside of class, and I’m always super pleased when they invite me to spend time with them, especially when it’s Japan-related!

Tip number 6: find fun things to do related to the language you’re learning

Day 27

I go to Kantenya, the Japanese supermarket, and buy sashimi-grade tuna to make まぐろたたき丼 (maguro tataki don; chopped tuna rice bowl). I ask the staff how long it will take to defrost the tuna. She explains you can just take it out the freezer, or there is a proper technique that’s should make it taste better. She produces a handout that shows how to do it! They have the handout in Japanese and in English. I take the Japanese one. We talk about the Manbiki Kazoku film too.

Day 28

I have a 30 minute italki lesson with N-sensei. We talk about her plans to study abroad in the UK and my time in Japan. It’s fun, but I don’t really learn anything.

I reflect that just talking is not very good practice for me personally. I think I need to talk about difficult topics and be corrected quite closely.

Italki makes a distinction between “community tutors” (unqualified) and “professional teachers”. N-sensei is a community tutor, and mostly does “free talk”. On reflection, this is not really what I need from a paid class.

Day 29

Before my group classes, I teach a private lesson in a cafe. We go over some grammar points my student has questions about, but mostly I just try and get her to speak Japanese, without using English.

Most students need more speaking practice. The experience of being totally lost in language, and not understanding most of what’s going on is something we may not have felt since childhood. As such, it can be really scary.

I believe it’s a feeling you need to get used to if you’re going to make progress. I tell my student I want her to be a little bit outside her comfort zone - not so far that it’s terrifying, but just enough that she’s pushing herself and learning new things.

Day 30

Skype lesson with Sugita-san. We read ネギを刻む (negi o kizamu; literally “Chopping Leeks”) a short story by 江國香織 (Kaori Ekuni). One of my favourite things about my lessons with Sugita-sensei is that he introduces me to stories and essays I wouldn’t necessarily find by myself.

Day 31

A Japanese volunteer, Aria, comes to class with me. My students ask her questions and talk with her in Japanese. We also make 四コマ漫画 (yon-koma manga), manga comic strips with four panels. Aria helps out a lot and my students enjoy speaking with her.

I get requests from local Japanese people to come and volunteer at class fairly frequently. I’m grateful for their help, and it’s good for my students to practice speaking in this way.

Speaking in Japanese every day for a month - my conclusions

1) Find a good teacher

You need a teacher who fits your needs. If you just want speaking practice, find someone who will “just talk” with you. If you want to be corrected, ask your teacher to correct you more. Chatting with friends is good, but your friends aren’t language teachers (probably)

2) Make friends

The absolute best things I did this month – not just in this challenge, but the most fun things I did this month overall – was talk with my friends in Japan.

I was reminded too that being able to talk with friends in Japanese is really important to me.

3) Connect offline as well as online

If you live in a country where Japanese isn’t widely spoken, you might need to go online to find people to talk with. But I did get a bit bored of having so many Skype lessons, especially as I started to feel I wasn’t getting much out of it.

Plus, italki is kind of expensive to take lessons so often. I plan to start teaching online late this year, so I told myself that taking Skype lessons was research…

Speaking to people offline was way more fun for me.

4) Be open to surprises!

Japanese popped up in some unexpected places this month. I knew that Jess runs a Japanese speaking club, but she’s English so I wasn't expecting us to talk in Japanese so much. That was a lot of fun.

5) Find work using your languages

I get to use Japanese in my work, because I teach Japanese. Arguably it’s not really speaking practice for me, but my students always ask me good questions and help me see things about the Japanese language from a new perspective.

If you want to get serious about having more chance to use your Japanese, consider looking for a job or a voluntary position where you can use it. Could you work in a Japanese restaurant, or for a Japanese travel agency?

And finally…

At an advanced level, speaking a lot is actually not a great way to get better at speaking.

One of the italki teachers told me: “You don't need speaking practice, because you can already speak. If you read more, you’l be become able to talk more fluently about complex topics.”

This fits with what I know about input-based methods of learning languages – essentially, that these two things happen in this order:

1. You get input — you read and listen to sentences in some language. If you understand these sentences, they are stored in your brain. More specifically, they are stored in the part of your brain responsible for language.

2. When you want to say or write something in that language (when you want to produce output), your brain can look for a sentence that you have heard or read before — a sentence that matches the meaning you want to express. Then, it imitates the sentence (produces the same sentence or a similar one) and you say your “own” sentence in the language. This process is unconscious: the brain does it automatically.

(quote from Antimoon)

There can be no good quality output (speaking the language; writing it well) without massive amounts of input (listening to and reading the language).

But if you’re a beginner or intermediate learner, you’re probably not getting enough speaking practice.

Speaking Japanese every day was really fun. As you can see, it didn’t quite have the result I was hoping for, but I definitely learned a lot. Why not give it a go?

Sakura - Beginner Japanese - Tuesdays at 12pm (UK time) | Online Group Course Starting 6th January 2026

from £195.00

日本語教室で多読のコースを開いてみたイギリス人日本語教師の感想

（英語版はこちら Click here to read in English）

私はどっちかといえばもの静かなほうだと思いますが、日本語を教える時はうるさい時もあります。授業では歌を歌ったり、盆踊りを踊ったり、にぎやかなゲームをしたりしています。隣の部屋で会議を行おうとしていた人たちに「少し静かにしてくれませんか」と注意されたこともあります。 

でも、２０１８年に私はとても静かな日本語の授業を開きました。この授業では、生徒は主に一人で黙って勉強していました。 

私はその授業の「先生」だったけれど、私も一人で手作りの絵本を読んでいて、時々生徒が大丈夫かを確かめるために目を上げただけ。

これは「多読」です。普通の日本語の授業と全然違う読解の学習法です。

多読とは、文字通りたくさん読むことです。簡単な本をたくさん読んで、外国語を身につける方法です。多読では、今の勉強のレベルより少し簡単なレベルの本を読みながら、新しい言葉や表現や文法を自然に習うことができます。 

私は、多読の「授業」を開くのにかなり緊張していました。生徒が読んでいる間、私は先生としてどうすればいいかな？そこに座るだけ？生徒は一人で読むなら家ですればいいんじゃない？いったい誰が「静かに一人で読む」クラスに参加したいのだろう？

ネットでいろいろ調べて、東京にある多読を支援する団体である「NPO多言語多読」から多読の本を取り寄せました。

事例紹介や実際的なアドバイスがたくさん入っている「 日本語教師のための多読授業入門」＊という本も買って読み始めました。

NPO多言語多読のメンバーからもメールで応援メッセージをもらって、自信が少しつきました。

その後私の新しい多読のコースはブライトンの新聞にも掲載されたんです！ それを見て、かなり緊張し始めました。

多読の本が日本から届いて、私の生徒には良さそうなレベルだと思いました。でも正直、少しつまらないんじゃないかと心配しました。大人の生徒は本当に「3匹の子ぶた」が読みたいのだろうか？でも、自分で読み始めて、驚きました。すごく楽しかったのです。

絵本だからわからないときは、絵を見て推測してみることもできます。絵を見てもわからないときは、コンテクストから推測するのもいいです。それでもわからなければ、続けて読むだけでいいです。

ただ、辞書を使うことだけは許されていません。（私はこのルールに加えて、知らない単語の意味を先生に聞くのもダメだ、ともうちょっと厳しくしてみました。）

辞書を引いたり言葉の意味を聞いたりするのは、読むことを遮って進むペースが遅くなるんです。そして読むのが楽しくなくなって、生徒はやる気がなくなってしまいます。そこで、多読では知らない単語や表現に出会う時は、飛ばし読みが勧められています。

もう少し先を読めば自然にわかるようになりますから。そして、（これが面白いよ！）時々わからなくて大丈夫です。読めば読むほど、外国語を理解するのが易しくなるんですよ！

私は２００７年に日本語を勉強し始めましたが、初めて日本語の本を丸々一冊読み終えたのは２０１２年でした。あの５年間に多読のことを知っていたらどんなにたくさんの易しい日本語の本が読めていただろう、と今思います。 

私の多読のグループに参加した生徒の中には、１年間しか日本語を勉強したことがない人もいましたが、２、３回目のクラスまでに（つまり、２〜３時間の間に）様々な日本語の本も読めたのは、大変な業績だと思います。

レベル別に分かれていて、簡単で、短い本だからこそ、Step Up Japaneseの生徒は早く楽しく読めました。

多読の読み方のルール
（NPO多読のウェブサイトから引用）

１．やさしいレベルから読む

絵がついていて、母語に訳さなくても読めるやさしいものから読みましょう。絵をじっくり見て本の世界に入ることが大切です。

２．辞書を引かないで読む

わからない言葉を辞書で調べていると、速く読めません。ゆっくり読むと、つまらなくなってしまいます。わからない言葉が出てきても、辞書を引かないで、絵を見たり、その後の文を読んでみましょう。

３．わからないところは飛ばして読む

絵を見たり、ちょっと考えてもわからない部分は、飛ばしてしまいましょう。楽しく読めていれば、全部わからなくていいのです。

４．進まなくなったら、他の本を読む

進まないのは、読んでいる本が難しいか、興味がないからです。その時は止めて他の本に替えましょう。

生徒がルールを守れるかどうかという心配もありました。辞書を開きたくなったり、興味がないのに無理やり本を読み続けたりすることも絶対あると思いました。みんなにとって和やかな雰囲気が作りたかったけれど、リラックスしすぎた感じだったら、生徒が本を読まずにおしゃべりしてしまう可能性もあるんじゃないか、という不安もありました。 

でも、心配することはありませんでした。みんなしっかりルールに従って勉強できました！だって、本をたくさん読むために多読のコースに参加したんですから。

「辞書なし」というのは一番大変だったらしいです。授業の終わりに「ルールに従って多読できた？」と聞いたら、ある生徒は今まで見たこともない漢字一つをこっそり辞書で調べたことを告白しました。その漢字は「臼」でした。 

「続けて読んでみたらコンテクストからわかったかもね」と私は言いました。（あと、「臼」はほとんど見かけない漢字なので、調べないで本を読み続けたほうが効率のいい学習法でしょう？とも思いました。）とは言っても、基本的に生徒は辞書を使わずに楽しく読めました。 

一回目の授業が終わったら、買った本の数は少なかったと気づきました。生徒がこんなに早く読めると思いませんでした。ネットで多読の本をもっと注文しました。

６週間多読をして、生徒にはいろいろなメリットがあったと私は思います。そして、私も先生としていろいろ学ぶことができました。

これまで授業のために読み物を選ぶとき、私はできるだけ面白そうなものを選ぼうとしてきました。時間があるときは自分で短いストーリーを書いたりもします。でも、多読で読んだ本と比べたら、どれも面白くないなと気づきました。

それはなぜかというと、基本的に教科書に載っている読み物はつまらないからなんです。

簡単な読み物でも面白いものがたくさんあるというのは、多読が私に教えてくれたことなんです。

「ラーメン麺太の冒険」（右）は人気の作品一つでした。

始める前に、生徒はどの本を読めばいいか、自分にとってどのレベルがいいかわからないこともあるんじゃないかと思ったけれど、そういうことは全くありませんでした。生徒は自分が興味のあるトピックで、自分のレベルに合わせた本を選ぶことで、自分の日本語のレベルにも自信がつきました。

授業中、私も簡単な楽しい本を読んで、質問されたときはこんな風にかわしました：

Bさん：　先生、これはどういう意味ですか。

自分：　Bさんはどう思いますか。

Bさん：　あ、そっか。ルール２ですね。

６週間のコースの真ん中で、私は夏休みの旅行でポルトガルに行ってきました。ビーチでビールを飲みながら「コンビニ人間」という日本語の本を読みました。辞書を開かずに、知らない単語を深く考えずに、早く楽しく読めました。 

つまり、「多読」という勉強法は生徒だけではなく、私にも革命的でした。

２００７年に知っていたらよかったな、と今思います。あの初めの５年間でどんなにたくさんの易しい日本語の本が読めていただろう！ 

来年の多読コースについて考えてみたら：

• 読んだ本について生徒に短い感想を書かせる？：

写真：国際交流基金

• 音楽を聴きながら読むのはどうかな？

• 一年で６週間以上した方がいいんじゃない…？

リンク：

• NPO多言語多読→ https://tadoku.org/

• 日本語多読たどくブックス注文申し込み（NPO多言語多読版）→ https://tadoku.org/japanese/to-order

• KCよむよむ（無料で多読ブックスをダウンロードできます！）→　https://jfkc.jp/clip/yomyom/

• ブライトンの新聞（The Argus）に掲載されたStep Up Japaneseについての記事（英語）！ Japanese Language School is Running a New Course in Brighton
  → https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/16361201.japanese-language-school-is-running-a-new-course-in-brighton

• 「日本語教師のための多読授業入門」→ https://amzn.to/2T5AAkY ＊

• 「コンビニ人間　→ https://amzn.to/2CFJjDA ＊

＊が付いているリンクはアフィリエイトリンクです。そこをクリックして本をご購入いただいた場合は、私はアマゾンからわずかな手数料を受け取ることができます。お客様には普通の価格でご購入いただき、手数料はかかりません。いつも応援してくださってありがとうございます！m(_ _)m

（英語版はこちら Click here to read in English）