TOEFL iBT Academic Discussion and Writing Video usage in class as suppliment

Question

Should schools incorporate more videos into the curriculum alongside traditional reading materials to enhance the learning experience?

 

 

☆Let’s Think

1.        Sarah says that videos can supplement the intellectual depth of written material by providing real-world context, visual examples, or even expert interviews that can make abstract or complicated subjects more relatable. Provide a specific example for this point.

2.        Share your experience of a passive form of consumption that Tom mentions in terms of video usage in learning.

 

☆Hints for Points

For

1.     Seeing is believing.

 

2.     Videos and books supplement for each other.

 

Against

1.     Videos have less information than books do.

 

2.     Overuse of videos may lower students’ reading skills.

 

 

☆Response for Ideas and Expression

For:

Schools should incorporate more videos in the curriculum. Videos are used as realia and so indispensable in classes. They contribute to better understanding of the reading materials and motivation for learning the subjects. They also supplement some type of information that reading cannot provide. For example, they can show actual audio and visuals of battle grounds in history classes, chemical reactions that are too dangerous to demonstrate in a school lab, or a certain expression uttered in a real conversation in a foreign language class. Of course, reading materials make up the core of academic learning as most of the academic information is only in books. However, provided that they are used as supplementary materials for reading, videos enhance learning.

 (120 words)

 

Against

Although I don’t deny the remarkable teaching effect of videos used in schools, I am skeptical of its total benefit in the long run. For one thing, studies come down to accurate comprehension of the reading materials and training of critical thinking, and intensive and comprehensive reading is necessary to develop the mind of students for it. Videos can make it easier to understand the reading material to some degree, but they are nothing more than that. Also, as Tom is concerned, they may hamper the active learning, giving students false satisfaction that they have learned the subject well enough. For instance, watching chemistry class videos introducing each element of the periodic table may provide some general ideas about elements, but it cannot give any real knowledge of them that is acquired by actually experimenting on the samples and reading the related information about them. (145 words)

 

 

☆Response plan

Topic Sentence:

Supporting Details:

Conclusion         

Write your response in 10 minutes. Show each other your responses. Write down questions or suggestions to each other’s response.

 

                                               DRAFT