In order to make use of this seemingly endless closure of primary schools due to the attack of the SARS virus, I have just asked Alec to write me a report every 7-10 days. Within each of these periods, Alec is supposed to read the news from the paper, the Internet and on TV, or watch the Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, or any kind of science or history or whatever programs on TV or the Internet. He is supposed to select any topic of interest, do the research on the selected topic, and write a simple 50 word or more report in either Chinese or English.
I deliberately make these reports shorter than his usual 100 word homework reports from school in order to keep it simple enough for him to keep his interest in these exercises.
I am hoping this kind of exercises will improve his comprehension, his composition, his interest in any kind of knowledge, and his attention span.
Sounds like a very worthwhile exercise. What Alec needs is a blog. Maybe a multimedia one. Maybe he could use one of your digital cameras to take pictures or short movie clip of things he is interested in and put the files in his blog. Or maybe he could draw and scan his drawings and put them in his blog. Teach him about hyperlink and url.
Since MovableType has a Traditional Chinese language pack, I don’t see why it can’t handle BIG5. Alec could write in Chinese if he wants to. Q9 is easy to learn (I’ve got yours. You can have it back if you want. The latest greatest version is available from many places, and only ~$200 to $300, not expensive at all.)
A computer connected to the Internet is a powerful communication tool.
Thanks for the sound advice.
I’ll let him get use to the idea on paper first, and may be I’ll let him try writing something here after a couple of paper reports. Actually, the whole idea was inspired by my works here. So, I have you to thank for.