Hello, everyone.
In Japan, since June is rainy season, it often rains these days.
Anyway, I wrote a essay. Although I think it is a little long, please correct it.
Topic 3: some educational systems wholly determine what students study; others provide students with a wide range of elective classes. Summarize the advantages of each system and indicate which you think is more appropriate for your country.
Japanese students cannot basically select subjects they learn at school because the nation already decides them. However, some schools provide students with a wide range of elective classes. I conclude that the latter is better after I compare the pros and cons of both options.
First of all, I think it is goodness for some educational systems to determine the classes. The merit of this way is that students can learn widely a lot of knowledge, in particular about some subjects they are hardly interested in. I think students should study some subjects they dislike because learning them makes their range of thinking wide. For example, when I was a junior-high school student, I studied judo, is a Japanese traditional sport. I wasn’t interested in it at all until then though. However, thanks for studying about the history of judo and playing it actually, I could see the fun of judo. This is a good point of determining subjects wholly which students study.
On the other hand, there are some merits of providing students with a wide range of elective classes. One of the merits is students’ motivation increase since most of the people tend to concentrate on what they like. Many successful people spend time what they’re very interested in. For example, Steve Jobs, who was ex-president in Apple, drop out a university. After that, he had been studying only subjects, which he liked. In a speech, he said that its experience was the most wonderful because he could focus on what he liked, instead of wasting his time and energy. As for what students have to know at least, it is enough to take a few classes at school and read some books outside of school. Rather than that, students should be able to study what they like and concentrate on developing their ability.
In conclusion, I think students had better have the right to elect classes they want to study. Today, we have a lot of ways to study: book, Internet, grad school and so on. If we need to know something that hardly have any relation with our interests, we can acquire knowledge regardless of place and time with various tools. However, in order to try on a theme we’re interested in and keep on deepening it, we have to spend much time on it. I think a wide range of elective classes enables students to pursue it at an early age.
TOEFL listening lectures: A university lecture on the history of the English language
