Now that we are a little confident with making small simple sentences, we began with the complex ones.
Joining two sentences using conjunctions and Indicating the reason, purpose, duration, location etc. via Prepositions.
One sparrow is still struggling with simple present and present continuous, a little more practice and hard work and she will definitely get it soon 🙂
Now that the exercises with the sentences were over we began writing questions.
Most importantly we had to understand how to use the different words like do, did, will and are/is.
i think the understanding needs more time specially with so many other words used to make the interrogative sentences.
I have given them very simple exercises to use the interrogative words in two sentences each. I hope they do well.
Also, it was fun using the same activity for making all kinds of interrogative sentences. We turned “eating pakodas” into a full fledged English  Language exercise. Lets see if our sparrows will be able to generate as man sentences out of the simple activities i gave them for home work.
I just came back from class.
I feel proud of associating myself with these women sometimes. They have begun to stay up till late and finish up their lessons with me even after a hectic day.Even when i can notice sleep and weariness in their eyes, they want to continue learning so that they move one step ahead from the previous day.Respect!
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So now coming back to the fun filled class we had today.
We have already done Nouns, Verbs , Adjectives, Articles and basic Tenses ( present, past and future) in the last one week. I keep giving them exercises to write sentences using the above and simultaneously give them a little hint towards using prepositions and conjunctions. ( a complete new chapter for it will still take a little while as we haven’t really begun exploring complex sentences.). Tonight’s exercise was on holding a conversation through questions. The basic setting was made for a vegetable seller and a person who wants to buy vegetables.
so, A goes to B to buy vegetables.
A: Hello B, how are you?( understanding the use of ‘how’ )
B: I am fine, Thank you. How may I help you today?
A: I want to buy vegetables. Which vegetables do you have? ( Notice the use of ‘which’)
B: Today I have onions, potatoes, tomatoes, lady fingers, garlic and ginger. Which vegetable do you want?
A: I want to buy onions.
B: How much do you want? (using ‘how much’)
A: I want 1 kg onion.
B: OK. I will give it to you.
A: How much does it cost?
B: Twenty Rupees, Madam.
A: Please take this money and put the vegetables in the packet.
B: Thank you and i will do that.
A: Thank you.Bye and Have a good day.
B: Same to you. Bye.
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The above exercise was re- enacted in three pairs and each person got a chance to be both the vegetable seller and the lady who had come to buy the vegetables.
It was fun to see how the group engaged themselves in this exercise and went on to extend it in their own ways. Like one of the sparrows added the fact that she could not put the vegetables in the plastic packet as its illegal so the other should ask for a cloth bag, or in the next group, one sparrow asked for five rupees in exchange for the cloth bag.Â
Also today we set a few ground rules too: No one is allowed to speak in any language other than English Language, So it was fun looking at my sparrows trying to weave the words together in their broken English. But with the efforts they are putting in, I see a lot of progress on the cards.
All the best for tomorrows class.
P.S: the home work is to make 10 Questions using the words- How, what, how much, which and Do.
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Hello!
This is the first post on ‘The Singing Sparrows’, and we feel that we should introduce ourselves to you 🙂
We are a group of sparrows.
Sparrows are the most common house birds in this world.
They chirp
They smile
They fly far and wide
They are home makers
They love family
and
They can Sing!
My sparrows here are the House wives and home makers who have spent all their life taking care of their little or Big families spending not much time on singing their own songs.
Most of these women are not able to take out time for themselves and study the basics of a language other than their mother tongue which comes to them naturally.
I am trying to help them to learn the basics of English Language through small easily understandable exercises that make learning fun for them, and trust me after two weeks with the bunch that I have around, it is such a break for all of us to come together and learn something new.
On this page I invite Home makers from all across the globe to contribute towards making my little sparrows sing their song and add their own songs along the way.
Being a student I would love to Encourage more students like me to take out an hour from their daily lives and go find a bunch of sparrows near you and help them with their songs.
” We all are a box of treasure that needs to be opened and shared.”
So,
Lets Sing together 🙂
The Singing Sparrows 