WRITING TASK 2

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

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Students at schools and universities learn far more from lessons with their teachers than from other sources (for example, the internet or television).

To what extent do you agree or disagree?

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Give reasons for your answers and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.

Write at least 250 words.

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1In the classroom, the teacher is the main source of learning.  Technologies – such as videos, interactive websites, and virtual gadgets – continue to play a part in the modern-day classroom (abet providing information and knowledge), but it is the teacher that grounds this knowledge and provides the basis upon which students can apply it to their individual lives.

2Knowledge, information, facts – all are cold and base and crude. It is the warmth of compassion provided by the teacher that leads students to an application of knowledge. 3If you inform students about the 1912 sinking of the Titanic – the great loss of life, and the changes put forth afterwards to prevent like disasters at sea – students may have a hard time relating to these bare facts, and may even have a harder time remembering them.  But if a great teacher presents actual photos, and enlists the interactive websites depicting actual testimonies from the survivors, this use of technology in the classroom becomes a great tool for teaching this subject.  But the teacher remains the source of compassion based on the knowledge.

4No robot or machine or video can bridge the relation of knowledge to a specific student or group of students. Someone has to put the technology into a framework of living, a perspective of application, and understanding for what it means to be human, which includes sadness and failure.

5In sum, teachers are the bedrock of great education. Without understanding, compassion, and sympathy, facts and information remain cold and flat and uncaring. No matter how much technology is used in the classroom, it is the teacher that makes all the difference. 

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1. Introduce the topic and state your thesis (view)

2. State the first reason for your view

3. Provide an example to support your view

4. State and support the second reason for the view you hold

5. Conclude your essay by restating your thesis