Thanks to the Internet, school children can not only play games on computers in their spare time, but also play with words as a form of learning.
During the winter holiday, which lasted from late January to late February, students used software for Chinese language composition on the Guangzhou-based Dayoo website.
Students can download the software for 35 yuan (US$4.20) via cash or credit card to the Dayoo.com company.
The software generates thousands of various styles of articles.
Type "composition" and other key words, then click on the mouse according to the software manual and you'll find the first or last few paragraphs to help guide you as you write your own composition.
A middle school student "completed" a composition entitled "Facing the Tension" in four minutes by copying the beginning, the end and two paragraphs in the middle of the software-born article.
His composition boasted of colorful words and flowing sentences.
"I smelled a breath of gunpowder in the air when I came back to the classroom after being truant," he wrote to describe his fear of being criticized by the teacher for his wrongdoing.
Yet his composition was creative enough to earn him a 90 out of 100, with his teacher saying "this student has wonderful writing skills."
Even so, many teachers worry the software will negatively impact the students. Guo Tieliang, a Chinese teacher at the Beijing Shiyi School, said the software, together with "Compositions Gathering," "Good Articles Selection" and other similar publications, hampers students' ability to think and write on their own because it allows them to sit idle and enjoy the work of others.
Ma Fuhua, a teacher at Huiwen Middle School who opposes letting students read such books as "Composition Gathering," said students should first learn morality, then how to write articles.
Students can hardly serve society if they lack good morals. Ma said.
Shen Baiyu, an official with the Ministry of Education who is in charge of basic education, gives the composition software a thumbs down.
"The software won't do children any good," Shen said. Children's real writing skills develop after a long period of reading books and magazines.
Their articles should be based on their own feelings and thoughts, rather than on the work of others, Shen added.
(China Daily March 12, 2002)
