8 JUN 2006

 

 

 

Dear Mr. Liu,

 

The most popular program, implemented in virtually all primary schools in the US, is one where youngsters are allowed to pick any reader in the library (at their level), read it, and then take a short quiz (to see if they understood the story). It works well for them, but I think there is a better process, and I would love to help implement it here in China.

 

The problem I saw with their process was noticed during my mentoring sessions with youngsters in the second grade. In essence, they were able to guess the correct answers without actually understanding what they were reading. If that quizzing process were replaced with, or supplemented by, the C-test process, that would not happen.

 

I could take all of your graded English readers and add the C-test dimension at very little cost. Then at your (proposed) ClozeOnline.cn site, you could offer this supplemental service to any school in the country. Wouldn’t this give FLTRP a fine competitive advantage? I would think so. In fact, why pay me; I can show one of your own people how to do that.

 

Remember that my only motivation at this point is to add face validity to Klein-Braley’s C-Test. Europe became sold on it, which means, of course, America doesn’t even want to look at it. L Your company, however, seems to want to be and stay at the very cutting edge of foreign language instruction. Adding the C-test dimension to your books would be such a better way. My C-test program, btw, works with all languages, not just English. To see how well Chinese characters are preserved, go to clozeonline.us, leave all the defaults, click [LOGON] and one of the [ChineseCharacter-test] links.

 

Please indicate whether and when you would like me to show you the process of creating them.

 

Cordially,

 

 

 

Joe Blum