シャドーイング練習: How To See Germs Spread Experiment (Coronavirus) - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

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- I've always thought if we could somehow just see the germs around us, everyone will be a lot more careful and we'd get sick way less.
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Unfortunately, that's still not possible.
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So I did the next best thing by running a daylong experiment in this third-grade classroom.
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I found this powder called Glo Germ.
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And just like real germs, when it's on your hands, you can't see it.
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But unlike real germs, if you turn a black light on, it becomes visible.
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But it transfers to things you've touched, so it provides a really good way to visualize exactly how germs spread.
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So before the kids arrived, as a control, I went around and noted any preexisting spots in the room that fluoresced under the black light.
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And then it was go time.
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The kids, of course, had no idea what we were doing and that the teacher had been secretly infected with the glowing powder.
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So she randomly shook the hands of three kids but didn't touch any of the rest.
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And so with that, they just went about their normal day.
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At break, I did choose one random student, and he agreed to letting me put some of the powder on his hands too.
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And then two hours later at lunchtime, I checked the results.
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Remember, everything you see here started with just the teacher and one student having a little of that powder on their hands.
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And because my flashlight can only illuminate one spot at a time, I used Photoshop to better visualize our observations of where germs were left behind, including on the other kids.
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Uh-oh! We're pretty hot over here!
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Oh, right here.
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And they were actually pretty diligent about washing their hands.
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This was the desk of the kid that was infected.
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And what's crazy is that germs could live on a hard surface like this for up to nine days.
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And so you can see how important it is to disinfect the things a sick person regularly touches.
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For example, this was the phone of the teacher in the experiment.
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Even if you wash your hands really often, if you immediately pull out your phone, a lot of those germs just go right back on your hands.
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Think about when the last time was that you cleaned your phone.
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My friend Joanna at "The Wall Street Journal" recently demonstrated you can clean your phone with an antibacterial wipe every day for at least a year and it doesn't affect the oleophobic coating at all.
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And this hopefully gives you a better mental model of why it's really important to wash your hands or use hand sanitizer after being at places like this or this or this or this.
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Cleaning commonly touched surfaces is important because even if a virus is spread through airborne transmission, those tiny droplets don't stay in the air for long.
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Then they land on surfaces, waiting to be touched by our hands.
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Which raises an important point.
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The ultimate defense against catching a virus is just don't touch your face.
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Your eyes, nose, and mouth are like the single weak spot on the Death Star when it comes to viruses.
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That's the only way they can get in to infect you.
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But as you can see here, not touching your face is easier said than done.
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And before you think, "Yeah, well, that's just kids for you," this was what the teacher's face looked like at the end of the day.
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And she said she tried extra hard to remember not to touch her face.
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I found this result fascinating, so I put the powder on my own hands for a few hours.
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And I resisted the urge to touch my face so many times that I fully expected I was going to have a perfectly clean face and the moral high ground.
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And then this is what I saw.
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What the heck?
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I genuinely have no idea when any of this came on.
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Until I reviewed the footage.
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Oh, well, there you go.
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On average, we touch our face 16 times an hour, which is why washing hands is so important.
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It's impossible to catch a virus directly through your hands.
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It's as futile as shooting the outer surface of the Death Star.
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The problem is, we use our hands to help the virus out by constantly giving it a ride to our figurative Death Star exhaust ports.
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Because of this, I ran another experiment with some of the kids after lunch.
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First, I had them put some lotion on their hands that also glows under a black light.
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But then I told them I made a mistake and used the wrong lotion.
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Could you guys just go wash your hands real quick?
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And do a good washing, right?
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- 20 seconds. - Yeah.
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Do the right washing, okay?
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I just tricked you guys again, because what I really wanted to do is test how good you are at washing your hands.
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So guess what I'm gonna do now?
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- What?
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- Show me your hands.
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But before I show you how effective they actually were at washing their hands, here's what you should quickly know about viruses.
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They're super tiny, but also the most abundant biological entity on the planet.
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In fact, there's over 10 million viruses in any single drop of sea water.
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And a lot of types of viruses are beneficial to the planet's ecosystem, and only an insanely tiny percentage affect humans at all.
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And they're really simple.
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Viruses are basically a shell with some DNA inside, and they just wanna spread and duplicate.
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That's their only goal.
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But they're so simple that they need a host to do that.
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So they reproduce by infecting their host cells and then trick them to become factories that just make more exact copies of the virus.
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When you get sick and then cough or sneeze or wipe your nose and then touch a surface, you're putting copies of this virus out to find other hosts and just repeat the process.
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And so here's what the kids' hands look like after washing their hands.
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Uh-oh, look at the backs. Let me see your fingernails!
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Oh, look at all those germs!
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Oh, your thumb!
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- Oh, my hand- - Oh, look at your wrist!
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Look at your wrist!
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We all sort of have a habitual way of washing our hands.
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So once again, I tried this myself using the typical quick way I do it in my muscle memory.
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Granted, that's better than nothing, but you could see the difference compared to when I was deliberate and took 20 seconds, which is why it helps to do things like sing the "Happy Birthday" song twice, or you could do what I do and follow Brandon Flowers' example.
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Jealousy, turning saints in Eager eyes 'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside - And then for a final experiment, I wanted to show how dumb handshaking is.
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So I infected the first kid with the powder and then had them do a handshake chain down the line.
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The fifth person here still had significant traces on their hand, so I put him at the first and lined four more kids up after him, and three of their hands glowed.
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So we got trace germs from the original person all the way down eight handshakes later.
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So if you ever meet me in real life, please don't be offended if in lieu of a handshake I offer you a fist bump and a selfie. In conclusion, what does this all mean with regards to the coronavirus COVID-19?
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You should be concerned and take this seriously, but regardless of what you see in the coming weeks, there's absolutely no need to panic.
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As I'm sure you've heard a bunch by now, our goal is to flatten the curve so that reported cases stay just under the capacity of the healthcare system, and social distancing is the best knob that we can turn to affect that.
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The reason this helps should hopefully make more sense after watching this video, especially for those who have been doubting the science and feeling like this is an extreme reaction.
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And my take here is I'm a practical optimist.
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The upside is while this virus is bad, it could be way worse.
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And this gives us a chance as a global community to get some systems and methods in place to handle something potentially even more drastic in the future.
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Also, maybe it'll lead to changing some social norms, like replacing handshakes with fist bumps or when people are really sick thinking it's okay to mingle about and go to work.
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Globally, the normal flu kills anywhere from a quarter to a half a million people a year due in large part to people not practicing good germ hygiene.
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So if this experience makes people more socially aware of the right precautions to take when they get sick, that will save countless lives for years to come long after this coronavirus is old news.
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And make no mistake, this is gonna be rough for some more than others, but history has shown that us humans are pretty resilient.
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These types of things can bring out the worst in us, but they can also bring out the best, most wholesome parts of us, like these Italians practicing their social distancing with an impromptu balcony concert.
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How we feel about the situation is largely dependent on just which part we choose to focus on.
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For me, that means being grateful to the heroes in our healthcare system, or the school lunch ladies still providing free lunch for kids who depend on them, or the scientists all over the world who are working tirelessly seven days a week to create better testing methods in a vaccine.
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This is gonna be a bumpy ride for us, but the economy will eventually bounce back, as it always does, and we'll be better off as a global community for having gone through this.
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Again, take this seriously, but there's absolutely no need to panic.
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We totally got this.

この動画でスピーキングを練習する理由は?

この実験動画から、英語のスピーキングスキルを向上させるための具体的な contextoが得られます。特に、感染症の拡散を視覚化することにより、注意深さと手洗いの重要性を伝える内容は、日常的な会話に役立ちます。子どもたちの反応を通じて、自然な会話の中で使われる表現を学ぶことができ、言語力を高める機会となります。動画内で使われる言語のフレーズやトーンを模倣し、英語の発音を良くするための練習をすることができます。

文法と表現の文脈

  • If we could somehow just see the germs around us - 条件文を使用し、仮定の状況を作り出しています。この構文は、仮想の状況を述べるのに非常に役立ちます。
  • it becomes visible - 現在形の使用は、一般的な真実を述べる際に重要です。常に有効な情報を伝えるためにこの構文をマスターすることが推奨されます。
  • I used Photoshop to better visualize - 過去形を使用することで、何かを行った結果を強調し、物語の流れを示します。この文は、自分の経験について話す重要な方法です。
  • The ultimate defense against catching a virus - "the ultimate defense"というフレーズは、特定のアイデアの重要性を強調するために役立ちます。効果的なプレゼンテーションに手立てを与えます。

一般的な発音の落とし穴

この動画では、特に注意を要するいくつかの単語やアクセントがあります。germsやfluorescedのような言葉は発音が難しく、正確に発声することが重要です。特に、子どもたちが話す場面では、早口やカジュアルな会話において明瞭さを失う可能性があります。英語シャドーイングを通じて、これらの発音を繰り返し練習し、慣れることが大切です。また、shadow speakの技法を用いて、映像の発言を模倣することで、自然なアクセントやリズムを身につける効果があります。

この動画の文法

話し手がよく使っている文型を、動画の実際の表現とともに紹介します。

文型動画での表現
受動態 be + 過去分詞 — 誰がするかより、何が起きるかに焦点を当てるwere left · was infected · is spread
現在完了形 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去の出来事が今も関係しているI've always thought · you've touched · you've heard
関係詞節 who / which + 節 — 人や物について情報を加えるhour, which is · seconds, which is · those who have

シャドーイングとは?英語上達に効果的な理由

シャドーイング(Shadowing)は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的:ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影(shadow)」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。

シャドーイングのやり方: ステップ別の完全ガイドを読む →