Discuss both of these views and give your opinion as to the usefulness of television as an educational tool.

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

You should write at least 250 words.

Model Answer 1:
There is a lot of controversy on the topic whether TV can play a role of a teacher. Some people hold a viewpoint that it can never be educational at all. Others, although, disagree, referring to TV's high potential of teaching through amusement.

As a matter of fact, television nowadays can hardly be called educational. All those talk shows and soap operas we see every day are a complete waste of time and can even have negative effects by distracting young and undisciplined people from their studies. Moreover, the most of the so-called educational programs in channels like National Geographic channel can not replace books and academic lectures because they tend to entertain people and have not an aim to give deep and concentrated knowledge.

However, TV can be a powerful mean of delivering information and a nice part of learning process. Educational Methodists have proved that the more senses are involved at the time of studying; the more effective result can be achieved. Television produces both picture and sound, so its usefulness is obvious. Many teachers already use this advantage actively by showing students video cassettes which go as supplementary material to many language courses. So why not to broadcast such movies through television?

The problem of the ineffectiveness of television as an educational tool is in fact not a problem of television itself, but of people who decide the content of the particular channel. It is hardly unlikely that content directors would abandon their high profits and change talk shows to lectures and video lessons. Therefore, those, who insist on the uselessness of TV, maybe right, but let us not forget that as technology improves new cheap ways of broadcasting appear, for instance, video broadcasts. They can prove the exclusive power of such learning tool as television.

(Approximately 288 words)

(This model answer has been prepared by the site developer. However, please note that this is just one example out of many possible answers.)

9)

Watching television is bad for children.

Model Answer 2:
Some parents believe that watching television is bad for their children. So, they try to restrict their children from watching TV. However, other parents think that there is nothing bad in watching TV programmes. Personally, I think that watching TV brings tremendous benefits to the children unless they spend a lot of their valuable time in front of a TV set daily. It is recommended that children should spend less than a couple of hours daily for watching TV programmes and those programmes should be suitable for them. For the following reasons, which I will mention bellow, I believe that television plays an essential role in a child's development.

First of all, television helps a child to extend his or her range of interests. Children can find out many new things and make many exciting discoveries for themselves. In addition to this practical benefit, television improves children's vocabulary, their memory and gives them the opportunity to gain more knowledge. I think it is essential for a child's growth. Of cause, someone can say that there are plenty of different resources of information such as books and teachers. But, I think, in our modern world children must learn faster and use all contemporary technology in order to succeed. Secondly, watching cognitive programs helps children to learn more about wildlife, our environment and about the importance of preserving our forest and wild animals that live there.

Scientists say that a child should not watch TV more than 40 minutes successively and not more than 2-3 hours per day. For example, my mother always made us have a break after watching TV more than half an hour and let our eyes rest for several minutes before turning on the TV again. She did not let us watch the TV all day long as well. I think it is the best solution.

To sum up, I believe that television gives children and all people the opportunity to learn what can not be learnt from books. Television and movies, in particular, allow people to feel the reality and see what they will most likely not be able to see in their lives. Personally, when I was a child I liked to watch cognitive programs about wild animals. Unfortunately, my family had only one TV, but these programs were the only ones we all wanted to watch. So, we gathered in our living room and watched them in complete silence and I always remember those moments with a smile on my face.

(Approximately 365 words)

10) Some people say that television is useful in education, while others say it is useful only for entertainment. Do you agree or disagree?

Television redefined entertainment. From toddlers to seniors in their 70s and 80s everyone enjoys sitting in front of the idiot box. In addition to entertaining people, television keeps them informed. There are educational channels and twenty four hour news channels. They operate with the objective of providing education rather than entertainment. Therefore I certainly agree with the argument that television is useful in education.

Television brought entertainment to our living room. There are numerous channels and numerous programs to keep us entertained for hours on end. Actually, a lot of us are addicted to television and now it is nearly impossible to find a home that doesn’t have a television set. Television’s role as a major entertainment tool is well-documented.

Television also plays an important role in disseminating education. There are several channels dedicated to education. They provide information about the latest findings in the field of science, technology archeology and literature. News channels keep us informed of the happenings around us. Since television takes advantage of both audio and video it can have a profound impact on viewers. This makes learning easier. For example, when students watch scientific experiments being performed on the TV, they will be able to understand it better. Learning the theory from textbooks does not have such a profound impact.

Television also makes learning fun. Since television programs use tools such as multimedia and animation, they manage to capture the attention of students for long. Channels like Discovery and National Geographic have played a major role in spreading awareness about wildlife, history, geography and natural phenomena. Watching a science program on Discovery Channel is a lot more interesting than reading textbooks on biology or physics.

To conclude, television has played an important role in imparting education. It provides entertainment as well, but it is wrong to treat it as a medium that provides only entertainment.

11) According to a recent study, the more time people use the Internet, the less time they spend with real human beings. Some people say that instead of seeing the Internet as a way of opening up new communication possibilities world- wide, we should be concerned about the effect this is having on social interaction.