Hi everyone, I am a newcomer here. I am planning to take an IELTS exam. Please help me estimate the band score for this essay. I also really appreciate if someone can give me some suggestions to improve my writing skill.
Topic: Some universities offer online courses as an alternative to classes delivered on campus. Do you think this is a positive or negative development?
In recent years, online courses have gradually become a subject of considerable concern to many universities and colleges all over the world. There are several advantages and disadvantages with this problem but in my opinion, this trend can bring numerous benefits to not only students but also the public.
On the one hand, traditional classes cannot absolutely be alternated by online training sessions. It is widely known that along with theories taught by professors on the lecture hall, students have to do numerous practices and experiments related to the knowledge that they have studied to understand clearly every aspect of the issue. For example, learners in engineering or medical areas, they need to attend many practical training sessions to accumulate actual experience before joining real jobs at the company or hospital, which may help them avoid making mistakes after graduation. Obviously, this is quite difficult in virtual classrooms where students have to be active to look for opportunities in practicing what they have studied.
On the other hand, online courses can be highly beneficial in many cases. They have high quality comparable to ordinary classes yet much more flexible. Evidently, only with an Internet connection, students can take part in online training sessions at anytime and anywhere. For example, mobile electronic devices such as smart phones and tablets are becoming really popular in today’s society and they can fulfill the needs of studying for everyone. Learners can learn in their spare time at their own pace and watch lecture videos as many times as they please. Not only that, many universities also open courses for the community, which lead to updated knowledge can be universalized to all people from different regions in the world.
In conclusion, it is true that there is a deficit in online training methods associated with practical experience. However, there are more obvious advantages in terms of flexible time and universalized education.
Hi Le Thanh Tung, welcome to the forum! I enjoyed your essay. Your English is very good and your writing is clear and easy to understand for the most part, except for a few vague words that could be a bit more descriptive. I wonder if you have really captured the prompt well though.
You seem to have written an essay on the advantages of traditional courses vs the advantages of online courses. But a better answer would give the potential drawbacks of online courses, and why the advantages of online courses override these disadvantages. You sort of mention one disadvantage of online courses - the lack of practical experience. But you never state why the advantages make this disadvantage unimportant or irrelevant or explain how this disadvantage can be easily remedied. Plus there seem to be a lot of other possible disadvantages you don’t mention, like difficulty in forming relationships with your classmates, lack of contact with your professor including getting extra assistance during office hours, potential technical problems, and so on.
Here are some specific suggestions:
Thank you very much for your comments. They are really useful and help me aware the problems with my writing. Based on your suggestions, I will have better essays in the later actual tests. Again, thanks for your help!