━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ◆◆ ２００３年・公立高校入試・英語長文 ◆◆ 中３用 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 第６回 東京都の長文 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 【目次】 １．今日の単語 ２．今日の先読み ３．今日の本文 ４．塾長のコメント ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ━ ＜ １．今日の単語 ＞ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ living room [ 居間 ] marry [ 結婚する ] death [ 死 ] comfort [ 慰め ] tear [ 涙 ] go through [ 〜を経験する ] garbage truck [ ごみ収集車 ] pick up 〜 [ 〜を収集する ] throw away 〜 [ 〜を捨てる ] ━＜ ２．今日の先読み ＞━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 上の単語をざっと眺めて１０〜２０秒で予想を立ててみて下さい。 塾長の予想： 今回の「先読み」は難しいですね。単語だけではどうも分かりづらいです。 前半は 誰かが結婚したり、死んだり・・・でその死を悲しんで涙を流 す、それを慰める。…そのような何か大きな人生の節目を経験する。 後半は、何かを捨てる。それをゴミ収集車が持って行く。ということは 何か死んだ人の思い出の品物を捨てる、とか捨てないとか、そんな お話かな？ とも思いますが・・・・ 皆さんはどうですか？ ━＜ ３．今日の本文 ＞━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ---------------------------------------------------------------- 本文 "Mom, I'm home!" John said and ran into the living room. John's mother said, "Hi,John. How was school today?" John sat in his grandfather's old chair and began to talk about school. After some time he asked, "Where is Grandfather?" "He is walking in the park," she answered. "Tomorrow is his birthday. I think I will buy a new chair for him as a birthday present. What do you think, John?" "That's a good idea. This chair is too old," John said. That evening John's mother and father went out. John stayed at home with his grandfather. His grandfather sat in his old chair. John said, "Granfather, your chair is very old. Would you like to have a new one?" "No," his grandfather said. "This chair is very old, but it means a lot to me. Maybe you don't understand, John." John did not understand. After a short time, his grandfather said, "I sat in this chair when I asked your grandmother to marry me. That was a long time ago, but when I sit in this chair and close my eyes, I feel she is near. " He smiled and looked at the arm of the chair. "When your father was born, I sat in this chair. When that little baby was put into my arms, I felt very happy," John's grandfather said with a big smile. John was beginning to understand that the chair was something very important to his grandfather. "Many years later....," John's grandfather said and then stopped. His smile went away. "I sat in this chair when the doctor called and told me about your grandmother's death. I cried and cried. I was very sad, but this chair gave me comfort." John saw tears in his grandfather's eyes. "I understand now," John said. "This old chair is like a friend to you." "Yes, John. We have gone through a lot together," his grandfather said. Late in the evening, John's mother and father came home with a new chair. John and his grandfather were already sleeping. John's mother and father put the new chair in the living room and carried the old chair out. The next morning John got up and came into the living room. His grandfather's old chair was not there. "We carried the chair out. The garbage truck will soon come and pick it up," his father said. John was surprised. Then he heard the sound of the garbage truck. He ran out. A man was just picking the chair up. "Wait! Don't take that chair," John shouted. "That is my grandfather's chair. He still needs it." The garbage truck left without taking the chair. Then John's mother and father came out. John said,"Don't throw away this chair! It's like a friend to Grandfather. They have gone through a lot together." He told them more about the old chair. They listened to him. John's father said, "We have learned a very important thing from you, John. Thank you." John was glad. Then they carried the chair into the house. "Good morning, everyone." John's grandfather said when he walked into the living room. He sat down in his old chair. Then he saw the new chair in the room. John's mother said, "That's John's chair." John was surprised. "We bought it for him because he is a good boy," she said. "Oh, John is always great," John's grandfather said. ------------------------------------------------------------- ━＜ ４．塾長のコメント ＞━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ さて、いかがでしたか？ なかなか面白いお話でしたね。ストーリーが 面白いと言うよりも、ちょっとハラハラさせてくれたり、ちょっと涙を 誘ったりという意味でのおもしろさですが。（ゴミ収集車が椅子を持っ て行ってしまったら、この物語はどうなるのだろう…と本気で心配しま した。たかが物語とはいえ、私にも我慢できる展開と、出来ない展開が あるのですよ。） 塾長の先読みも、少しは当たっていたかな？ 涙を誘ったり…ということからですが、私は少年時代滅多に泣かない子 でした。また泣かないように努力していました。泣くことは「かっこわ るい」と思っていたからです。でも人は年齢を重ねるごとにどうしても 涙もろくなります。私も例外ではありませんでした。（おそらくあなた たちもそうですよ） 最近は映画を見ては涙、テレビドラマを見ては涙、 本を読んでは涙・・・東京都の英語長文を読んでは涙・・・という感じ です。特に子供が生まれてからは、幼い子供の話には心が揺れます。ま た、おじいさんおばあさんの話になると、自分の親のことを思って心が 揺れます。（幸いまだ私の両親は健在ですが、「あー、何も親孝行をし ていないなあ」などと思うと涙が出てくるのです。） 最近は、泣くことを「かっこわるい」とは思わず、「他人の苦労を分か るようになった」と考えるようになりました。ちょっとオジン臭いお話 になりましたね。ではまた！ |
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