IELTS Writing – Model Answer for an essay (from May 2011 exam in Malaysia)

The topic below was seen in the Academic IELTS exam in Malaysia, May 2011.

General Training Writing Task 2

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Many people believe that teachers should teach students how to judge right from wrong and how to behave, while others think they should just teach academic subjects. What is your opinion?

You should write at least 250 words.

Model Answer

Teaching is the art of transferring information from one human being to another. A good teacher is someone who can make this process happen smoothly. It is argued that instructors should make efforts to teach not only academic subjects but also those pertaining to basic ethics and proper behaviour. To prove this, the heightened abilities of a teacher to instill ideas and the community-related benefits of morality-based lessons will be analyzed.

Firstly, teachers are trained to communicate ideas effectively and applying these skills to the areas of morality and behaviour is a positive thing. For example, Canadian Catholic schools engage students in lessons that challenge them to clearly distinguish moral choices from immoral ones. As these sorts of lessons are typically part of a spiritual studies program, they are not found in Canadian public schools. Interestingly, Canadian public schools have much higher incidences of youth hostility and drug use and much lower high school graduation rates. Thus, when Canadian Catholic schools are compared to their public counterparts, the effects of the moral and behavioural lessons teachers impart to their students can be clearly seen as beneficial.

In addition to this, standardised classes instructing young people how to behave can help to preserve the values of a community from one generation to the next. Take China as an example. The Chinese education system to this day includes the teachings of Confucius, which stress the honouring of one’s parents. As anyone who has been to China can attest, young people tend to obey the will of their parents regardless of its nature. Thus, the teachings of behaviour by classroom instructors are effective in ensuring the values of a community are upheld from one generation to another.

After looking at how the teaching of behaviour and morality can be efficiently accomplished by teachers and further how these teachings help prevent the erosion of societal values, it is concluded that teachers should instruct students how to judge right from wrong and how to behave. It is hoped global lessons on morality grow increasingly similar in nature in the years to come.

This model answer was written for IELTS-Blog.com visitors by Ryan Higgins, an online IELTS instructor, blogger and author. For more of his free IELTS resources, visit his blog.