As Travelpapa works hard to bring up special needs (requiring personal guidance) & self-directed learning Elaine (now age 18 in 2023).  He had been designing educational travel trips, especially to China to help accelerate Elaine’s cognitive and personal development. She had not been to normal school since the age of 9. While she is weak in science & math, her right brain is more well developed. She has shown keen interest in languages, especially in Chinese language and social science. She is multi-lingual, and can also communicates in English, Malay, and dialects of Southern China such as Teo Chew, Hakka, Cantonese and some Hokkien. Elaine also has keen interest in Chinese history and culture.

Traveling in China helps her grow in many ways – her increasing understanding and learning of Chinese history, culture and language by researching of places she is going to visit; Planning before the trips: Improves on her sense of direction: Improves her self-confidence in interacting with strangers; Learning how to converse with  Chinese people who speak with strong accent from various provinces; And many other things.

So far this self-directed leaning model serves her well in the last 9 years and she is now having online tutorials on IGCSE subjects (English and Chinese 2nd language. Business Studies, ICT and Economics). She is schedulesd to sit for IGCSE exams at the end of next year and Travelpapa prefers to give her more time to pick up the subjects.

In this Blog, Travelpapa will share the learning experiences of Elaine while on various field trips to China’s destinations and cities, as well as a few other countries from time to time.

Parents, especially those with special needs children, will benefit from the sharing. But the methods will also benefit normal growing children as well.

As a BONUS, readers will also pick up many useful TRAVEL TIPS to and in China, as well as knowledge on Chinese history!

Elaine is lucky to have a papa who have unique backgrounds. Papa has studied psychology, political science, economics and Malay language, linguistics, & sociology during his tertiary education in now one of the top 10 universities in the world. He is an avid learner & reader since young and as a result, he has wide knowledge in many areas and  has incisive insights on what is going on in world politics, business, education, economics, society and cultures.