Day 3 - Learning More About Questions ?????

Day 3 - Learning To Ask Questions ????? on PhotoPeach

May Htoo was the saviour of the day - she translated in the majority of our classes and did an amazing job.
KG
We sang the Fischy Music song "Why?" with them and then we read the story "Why do the stars come out at night?" by Annalena McFee and Anthony Lewis. This story is based round all the kinds of questions that children wonder about such as:

Why is the sky so high? The oldest child replied with "because god is in the sky and he made the sky."

Why do babies cry? "because they have no Mum or Dad. They are dead."

Why do we fall asleep? "because it is dark... I don't like to sleep because I have bad dreams...I dream about my brother dying."

Grade 1
We explained the different words we use at the start of sentences which help us form questions - who, what, where, when, why and how. The children were then asked to form their own questions in pairs and to choose one of these to share with the class. They wrote their questions in Burmese. Some of the more poignant ones were:
Why do we live?,
Why don't you come to school?,
Why do you learn?
Why do you write?

Grade 5
Grade 5A answered Campie's questions and posed questions to them about life in Scotland. They tried really hard to achieve this in English.
Grade 5B engaged in work relating to the formation of questions using various question words. They were asked to do this with a partner and in English. They found this a challenge however their confidence grew as we fed back to the class. We spoke about the importance of asking questions to increase knowledge. We talked about the news and newspapers not always telling the full truth - they will tell you what they want you to hear - and it is crucial that they realise this and ask for more detail.
We are hoping they come prepared for tomorrow's lesson on questions for Aung San Suu Kyi - they seemed very excited about this. Hope they don't think she is making a personal appearance!

Overall today seemed to be a real success. The children seemed to enjoy getting the chance to think together and they definitely seemed to improve in formulating questions. We went home exhausted but happy.