The
Rules of the Game as Set out by Mother Nature
Mother Nature is not renowned for
providing safety nets or back up for those deemed inferior, lacking or ailing
in some way. As Darwin so aptly pointed out in The Origin of Species, it is the survival of the fittest, the
strongest, the ablest and the most knowledgeable that matters. In short, if you
have got what it takes in accordance with the rules of the game as set out in the beginning, you survive and also
prosper if you are lucky; if not, you are relegated to the rubbish heap of
nature: extinction; like that error of creation the dodo. The sick, the young,
the weak and the runts fall victim to various members of the cat or dog family
and the vultures deal with what is left making the whole scene look as if the
individual in question was never there in the first place. There are certain
freak cases that defy all rules and are evolutionary success stories like
cockroaches who, I am reliably informed, are the single most successful species of all having been around since T-
Rex roamed the world. I am also told they are continuing to evolve to dislike
sweet things and resist current sprays; all this in blatant defiance of the
super animals of prehistoric times like woolly mammoths and saber tooth tigers.
The
Modern World Was Quick to Follow
Human society has always deemed it
necessary and morally right to help those who are less fortunate, the trend
gathering pace in the last century and opening the doors to the modern welfare
state but this was meant for the most
extreme cases, not the average Tom, Dick or Harry who finds the going
tough. The latter were left to the mercy of modern capitalism and the free
market economy with rules of survival even Mother Nature would frown on.
Competition is now firmly embedded in the psyche of all of modern mankind and
it starts young and by young I mean kindergarten for which the young victims
have to interview and take a test in Japan. The destructive influence of this
cut throat competition is best exemplified by a child who, if I remember
correctly from an article I read in the Economist some years ago, was either
South Korean or Japanese and jumped to his death having failed to complete his
homework. The life of the modern child is like the never ending hurdles which
the child erroneously supposes will come to an end upon graduation. Little does
he know; the private sector takes over where school leaves off.
The
Ten Thousand Meter Dash and its Consequences
One of the hurdles described above in
our part of the world is the preparatory year of most famous English medium
universities. The law governing these institutions is clear: students are
allowed one year to master university level English in preparation for their
freshman year or else. Fail in June, and they have a right to attend a summer
school program, which has, over time, come to be seen as the third term for
beginner and pre intermediate students. Fall at the next hurdle and they are
left to their own resources but allowed to come back to repeat the proficiency
test a number of times. By law, the students do have the opportunity to
transfer to a Turkish medium university; an option most of those who fall at
the hurdle regard as giving up on their dreams and being sent to finish their
dinner in the kitchen. It is no exaggeration to say that students at such
universities see passing the proficiency as a matter of life and death as they
feel it is a turning point on which the course their futures will take depends.
A degree from one of the top English medium universities will enable them to
rise out of the working class or lower middle class and lead lives their
parents dreamt of for them with all the accoutrements of middle class life. It
is, in short, the route to success and happiness – whatever that may be.
To return to the average prep year and
what it entails, common sense, above anything else, dictates that completing
the task is a reasonable possibility for most who undertake to do so and that
everything humanly possible has been done to minimize failure and this is
indeed the case and a continuous struggle. Yet in order to be able to state
whole heartedly that such is indeed the case, one has to be very sure of one’s
syllabus, one’s teaching staff, the teaching methods employed, the teaching
aids which are available and, importantly, the students. There are countless
reasons for failure which are directly related to action taken by the
institution. Most of these issues have already been covered in previous papers
yet the most important players in this game, the students; have not, so it is
to them that I shall now turn.
What
if the Students are Human?
The punishing pace of the syllabus as
hinted at above naturally produces frantic teachers who, well aware of the
rules of the game as well as the track, can’t help but crack the proverbial
whip to maintain the momentum. There is a slight problem with this truly
punishing pace thought: the athletes are humans not replicas of Deep Blue. The
human brain is certainly a wonderful computer equipped with a wonderful
electrical circuit powered by 20 volts or so of electricity yet learning is not
quite as simple as entering code, writing a program and being done with it.
Humans, unfortunately for the coach – the teacher whose duty it is to keep up
the pace – have emotions and personalities; definite obstacles to learning in
some cases. They also have limits to what they can absorb in an average work
day and to add insult to injury, they get tired! Therein is the problem: there will be those who are left by the way
side, who drop out of the race and the greater the number of these failures,
whatever the reason, the more unpleasant it becomes for the management of the
club – the school administration. Large numbers
of failures look terrible for a school: the implication is that the institution
is just not able to get the job done or worse still, has no idea how to rectify
the problem; a most definite no-no.
Corporate business has its own remedy to
the problem of failure: sack those responsible, sweep everything else under the
carpet and “disappear it all”; it is quick and efficient. Unfortunately for
university administrations, this is not possible in the case of students who
will hold demonstrations, bang on doors and generally make a nuisance of themselves.
Then of course there is the press and before you can say Jack Robinson, the
headlines are in the nationals: university fails hundreds and deserts them to
their fate! To be fair, the coaches hate members of their team to fail with a
passion that can only be imagined; they have powerful instincts pushing them to
get the whole team to the finish line and they are prepared to resort to any
subterfuge to do so giving Machiavellianism a whole new twist. No subterfuge is
beyond them and no stone is left unturned in efforts to cheer on anyone who is
lagging behind all in a very noble cause obviously: to get the students through
to their freshman year. There is a lot that can be done to help students who
are having trouble ranging from counseling, which is available to students at
our university free of charge, to the rethinking of aspects of the syllabus and
methodology but it is to another of these safety measures that we shall now
turn: the writing center.
One
Small Step for a Teaching Establishment, One Giant Step for the Students
The writing center has been operational
at our university as an afterhour’s project for many years involving teachers
spending three hours a week seeing individual students for fifteen minutes each
and providing face to face feedback on essays on an individual basis. Writing
academic essays to the standards demanded by our university is no easy task
especially if much of primary and secondary education has been spent focused on
the those infamous test type exams coming at one thick and fast. In such a
learning environment, certain cognitive skills that facilitate essay writing
proper remain, quite understandably, atrophied leaving people like myself and
my colleagues to bring them alive at the ripe old age of eighteen. The students
in this university can score full points on the SAT, which is very little use
when it comes to essay writing per say. Their inability to write is also linked
to the lack of a reading habit, which can partly be blamed on the competition
focused education system so prevalent in the world and partly to the effects of
modern technology. This is not a universal affliction by any means but it is
widespread. Hence comes our conundrum: how to get intelligent students who have
a very mediocre reading habit and untapped essay writing abilities up to par.
The syllabus is prepared with military
precision with all this in mind; the aim being to fill the gaps in their
background knowledge, widen their horizons as well as furnishing them with the
skills a university student needs. Naturally, while doing all this, the secret
wish, the desire closest to all our hearts, is for our students to also learn
to love learning for its own sake discovering many avenues of interest they
delve into throughout their lives besides building a career. This, we hope,
will make the effects of the tight grip the business world can have on them
less stressful opening the doors to sources of happiness they never thought
possible.
The first and foremost safety net if you
will, the writing center, was established with this lofty goal in mind; at
least this was the dream of the dedicated members of staff who faithfully
taught them for years. Initially, the writing center was an afterhour’s project
with teachers seeing students for brief periods on an appointment basis. Though
dedicated and idealistic, these teachers devoted time to this project after a
full day’s teaching and with the full knowledge that they had papers to correct
on reaching home not to mention lessons to prepare. The pressure of work and
responsibilities probably hampered efforts in this initial version of the
writing center, which is very understandable considering the work load. Well
aware of the benefit of this safety net, our administration moved to make the
writing center a full time job as soon as they could spare the staff and
conditions allowed. It is to this altered version of the writing center that I
shall now turn.
The
Mantra of the Writing Center
The first step to take on embarking on
such a venture is to determine the job description by setting out clearly what
the duties of the writing center are. These principles can be listed as
follows:
·
To disabuse students of
the idea that they can write essays with divine inspiration as their only
guide.
·
In lieu of this, to convince
them of the need to preface the actual writing with adequate research in the
form of reading and listening.
·
To help them develop
basic research skills – a must in this part of the world where not everyone
grows up with access to computers
·
To convince the
students that the absence of adequate research leads to their native language
becoming the source of inspiration
·
To demonstrate the
pitfalls of the above with concrete proof of speedy progress
The first hurdle my colleagues and I had
to overcome was changing students’ mind sets and persuading them to accept this
mode of study. This was no mean task as most students in this country are
accustomed to “the segmented approach to education” with each subject neatly
packed away in its little pigeon hole. Thinking across disciplines, and we are
not talking of leaping off the Victoria falls but just stepping across the
merest trickle of water, was a completely alien concept. Gentle persuasion and
proof of the advantages along with our professional talent of persuasive speech
helped overcome this first hurdle not after a struggle though. One objection
that was voiced was as follows:
·
Students seemed to feel
that since no research or preparation was done before writing tests, none
should be done while preparing for the said tests.
The faulty logic and absurd reasoning is
painfully obvious to us as is the fact that students equate studying with
preparing for tests. They also seem to think that endless trial runs will
eventually get them there. Changing that view was an uphill struggle and we
didn’t always win. The second problem we encountered was the following:
·
The students were not
nearly as tech savvy as we had initially thought; not when it came to using the
internet for intellectual pursuits anyway. Many seemed oblivious to the depth
and breadth of the World Wide Web. They ended up having to have their hands held
and guided through the maze.
·
The students, I
discovered to my utter amazement, could not do research
The problem they encountered while doing
research was selecting key words to google, which is after all a summary task
if you like. For instance, I would ask them to find a video concerning the
issue dwelt on in a particular reading activity and the students would then
print the title of the reading text in the search section of ted.com and
naturally get nothing. One example I recall is a student who having done the
reading activity titled “War Against Girls” on my blog, wished to find a video
before tackling the writing task and failed because he printed the title of the
text in the search section. The solution to such problems is adopting a
holistic approach to teaching from the word go, which would enable a host of
mental skills to develop more successfully as well as furnish the students with
the necessary technical skills. Another problem this failing on the part of the
students hints at is the inability to summarize, paraphrase and annotate a
reading passage. These skills are a prerequisite in any reading and writing
program worth its salt and should be integrated in the syllabus from the word
go. That such skills do not get the attention they deserve in secondary
education goes without saying; a natural consequence of a test based and exam
oriented system. You will find in the appendix a sample reading task with two
writing tasks: the first a summary and the second an essay. This format should probably be a rule of
thumb in any reading program where reading into writing is the goal.
Putting
Pen to Paper
Having established the ultimate goal of enabling
students to write essays to the standards required by any respectable
proficiency test ( IELTS, TOEFL) and having determined the approach to writing
– a holistic one – one should set about listing the steps the students needed
to follow to write the essay. These steps, of which the students should be informed
at the outset, are as follows:
·
Making sure the essay
or paragraph followed some reading and preferably some listening as well.
·
In connection with, this
to base essays on reading they had covered in class
·
Alternatively, to
search for texts related to a topic they decided to write about, read and
annotate the texts
·
Then seek out videos on
the topic, listen and make notes
·
Lastly to use all the
notes they had compiled and opinions they had formed to write their essays
With a view to helping students in their
endevours, I established a blog some years back (http://theproproom.blogspot.com )
which has grown in scope over the years as I add ever new reading tasks. One
thing I always make sure of is a reading related writing activity or a summary
as this is the best way to guarantee full grasp of the text, enable transfer
and consolidation of information and also help students learn to enjoy reading
– the ultimate aim being the establishment of a lifelong reading habit. I also
prepared writing activities following the same principles I wished students to
follow to set the ball rolling so to speak. One such writing task I prepared is
provided below:
RESEARCH RELATED EFFECT ANALYSIS ESSAY: CHILD BRIDES
Every
year millions of young girls are married off before the age of eighteen in many
parts of the developing world. This cruel practice has devastating effects on
the girls themselves and on future generations. Do your research and write an
essay discussing the causes, effects and solutions to the problem. This will
end up being a longish writing task but brilliant practice. If you want to
shorten the task, consider the causes or the effects or the solutions.
READING
VIDEOS
What I recommend is starting with the
photo gallery, discussing the photographs and then moving on to the reading and
listening. I suggest that students do their research over a day or two, reading
and annotating a few texts and making notes on a video each day. Coming back to
a topic over a day or two helps consolidate learning. If the activity is to be
done in class, it would be a good idea to start with the photo gallery and then
assign the research as homework. The students could then come into class with
all their notes on a specific day and write their essays. An alternative would
be to do half the research together in class and the rest at home. This type of
writing activity has turned out to be very popular with the students as they
both learnt a lot and broadened their horizons and improved their language
skills. A second example is as follows:
ARGUMENTATIVE ESSAY: ARE DRONES A LEGITIMATE WEAPON
OF WAR?
Currently,
drones are being used ever more widely to target specific individuals
considered a threat by the US. What are the merits and demerits of the use of
this new weapon of war? Do your research and write an argumentative essay on
the issue.
Reading Material to Annotate
1. “The arguments for and against drones”
by John Rentoul
2. “Everything you need to know about the drone
debate in one FAQ” by Dylan Matthiews
3. What is not wrong with drones? By
Rosa Brooks
4. The case for and against drones
Listening
Material to Make Notes on
1. The legal, political arguments for
drones
2. Drones are not ethical and effective
As can be
seen, one attraction of this type of activity is the fact that it is very
topical; students develop the long term habit of following current affairs and
thus become better informed and more aware of what is going on in general. More
examples of such activities are on my blog. Below you will find an essay
written on the above topic after completing the research; this student passed
our proficiency exam in June. This essay
is a second draft, written after a session at the writing center but as I am
sure you can guess, the first draft was also good. An example of the
proficiency test is on our university website should you care to gage the
standard.
ARE
DRONES A LEGITIMATE WEAPON OF WAR?
In the course of time, people’s values and
priorities have changed yet there is one that has remained the same since the
beginning of time: the need for security and to win battles of all kinds at any
cost. People have tried yet failed to eliminate wars, but they work hard to
preserve their own safety. Because of this, scientists developed UACs and
drones thanks to technological developments. In this century, people are killed
easily by push button crafts. Drones are one of these UACs and the legality of
drones is a matter of debate in many countries. Some of them are in favour of
the drone strikes whereas others are against it for some valid reasons. It ıs
my contention that drones are not a legitimate weapon of war.
First of all, many civilians are killed by
drones. In spite of the murders being committed right and left, the drone
technology is moving ahead at full speed. Drones were used firstly in the
Yugoslav conflicts, and the use of drones escalated in the Afghanistan war. Due
to the drone strikes, not only militants but also noncombatants are killed.
According to some research, there have been 41 known drone strikes in Pakistan
since Obama became president and due to these strikes, 450 locals have been
murdered. This is an enormous mortality rate. The drone strikes are giving more
damage to the civilian population than militants. Because of this, the drone
strikes pose a great risk for humanity.
A further argument against the drone strikes
is that the drone strikes have some adverse effects on the drone operators. The
drone operators suffer from conflict-zone trauma, despite not being in the line
of fire. They are faced with the knowledge that they themselves are responsible
for the death of innocent people. Moreover, the drone strikes are controlled
via some computer software; therefore, this system can be turned into a
military threat by hackers. Hackers can enter the military network and take
control to drive the drone into the ground or use it for their own personal
gain. For example; Todd Humphreys, an assistant professor at the University of
Texas, showed how his research team was able to take control of a US military
drone just by using a store –bought GPS in 2012. This is not impossible;
therefore, drones should not be used in order to preserve world peace.
The supporters of drone strikes claim that
these aircrafts are far cheaper than other weapons because the initial cost is
not as high as manned aircraft. It is asserted that when the government uses
the drones, military spending may decrease in the country. However, this is a
very superficial idea. The initial cost is just the beginning of the
story. The personnel will need to specialize
in training operations; therefore, the operation cost is likely to soar over
time. The driving of a drone is harder than manned aircrafts; thus, the
requirement for specialized men will escalate in the country.
To sum up, UACs provide some advantages for
the military but the drawbacks cannot be overlooked. Due to the drone strikes,
a lot of people suffer from trauma and many civilians are murdered. Because of
this, the drones are not a legitimate weapon of war.
Written by: Hilal Demirtaş; May 2013
This brings us neatly to how exactly one
should work with the students in the writing center and how the practical
aspects are organized and it is to this aspect that will be dealt with next.
Getting
Down to Brass Tacks
It is necessary to specify at this point
that correction of an essay involves not only tackling grammar mistakes but
also every lexical and organizational aspect of the piece of writing. The
procedure to be followed could be listed as follows:
·
Correction and
explanation of grammar mistakes
·
The introduction of
better ways of expressing a specific idea with explanations – in accordance
with the students’ level
·
The correction of
misused vocabulary
·
The provision of
alternatives to the above with explanations
·
The amendment of
organizational mistakes
·
The provision of
alternatives to the above
·
The rewriting of
especially introductions and conclusions as examples – in accordance with the
students’ level
·
Instruction on how to
use outside sources without plagiarizing
One word of warning though: correction
and instruction are inseparable and the tutor should be prepared to do both if
he is to prevent that mistake from rearing its ugly head again and again. A
writing center is not an assembly line where essays are fed in at one end and
they emerge corrected at the other. Such an approach would be very inadequate.
The tutor must be prepared, for instance, to change unless to if not and also
explain he is doing this because if not
means otherwise in the said sentence.
He needs to say change vital to grave and explain that vital means important and necessary but
the student was referring to a problem. He then needs to make some sample
sentences so that the point registers. If the student has not grasped the
essence of how to write introductions or conclusions, the tutor needs to be
prepared to demonstrate; the tutorial provides by far the best opportunity to
iron out any problems after all.
As for organizational mistakes, they
usually disappear very quickly in this ‘source related’ way of handling
writing; students absorb the correct organization quite comfortably while
reading with the help of basic common sense. The American college system of
handing down ‘formulas’ for writing
various ‘types of essays’ should be avoided as it takes all the joy out of researching
a subject and writing as well as making sure all those cognitive skills remain
atrophied. Research related writing is a superb learning opportunity
guaranteeing a flow of information ranging from vocabulary and structure to
relevant content into the student essay; this flow should not be interrupted.
Naturally, no essay writing activity of
this sort would be possible without first showing students how to annotate and
make notes on a text for which purpose I prefer the Cornell Method. This method
which involves making short notes on a reading passage, eliminating unnecessary
details and reorganizing of the notes in preparation for summary writing is by
far the quickest and most efficient way to help students acquire these skills.
The session being complete, the student
should be required to go home and write a second draft of the essay with the
corrections and suggestions for improvements in mind, which should also be seen
by the tutor where possible. It is also recommended that students keep a log of
their typical mistakes which they can then refer to the next time they write an
essay. It is also advisable for students to file both drafts of their essays
away for future reference
The
Man on the Ground: The Old Dog
The next decision to be made concerning
such a venture involves those who are to man the tiller and the best choice is
experienced members of staff; a view shared among my colleagues. There are
various reasons for this and you could be forgiven for thinking anyone is up to
the job. Any well qualified language teacher can fulfill the tasks described
thus far in the paper; the problem though is this: they can’t do it fast
enough. There is a limit to how long tutorials can be; the said limits being
determined by student numbers and available staff and most institutions have
too many of the former and too few of the latter, which seriously curtails the
time allowed for each student. The time allowed is often in the vicinity of 15
or 20 minutes, which brings us to our problem: only experienced staff can
rattle off answers to all the questions a student may ask as well as correct
stylistic and organizational mistakes. Speed and efficiency come with
experience so where possible, senior members of staff should be assigned to
this post.
Reward
for Good Work
The long term goal of any writing center
is to maintain the flow and keep the students interested and keen. This can be
achieved in various ways. For instance, monthly writing competitions for each
level could be held with a jury of teachers who don’t teach at that level
reading the entries. The essays of the winners could then be posted on bulletin
boards or on the school website. This idea was applied by my friend and then
assistant director Deniz Atlı with a great deal of success. Another idea would
be the publication of level newspapers which could be published once a month.
The papers would not have to be printed; they could be published online on a
website the students could set up. Class blogs could also be set up with
students contributing on a regular basis with pieces of writing concerning both
in class and extracurricular activities. The teacher could also contribute to
the blog making it real teamwork. With
research and writing thus becoming a central part of the students’ lives,
success will be a certainty. Students will also broaden their horizons, learn
to enjoy reading and writing, become more pro active citizens and hopefully
also be happier; advantages that we all dream of.
A
Reward of a Personal Nature
One unexpected bonus of the writing
center was the realization that students were really benefitting from the
mentoring that was naturally taking place at the writing center. Discussion of
essays inevitably led to study habits and some brief discussion of the personal
problems the students were facing while trying to meet the demands placed on
them by the school. University education in this part of the world where the
number of truly outstanding universities is low and are congregated in the big
cities of a vast country, the demand is huge and resources are stretched is a
strangely impersonal affair. The tutorials which are the pillars of university
education in the UK do not happen here, class sizes can go above a hundred
reducing opportunities for a one on one relationship between lecturers and
students to the detriment of education. How deeply this alienation, if you like,
was felt became apparent to me during tutorials. I observed that those students
who came regularly to see those of us conducting the tutorials became happier,
better adjusted and more engrossed in their work. It must be remembered that
university is the first time many students leave their home towns to travel to
huge metropolises to start their university education, which means that this
first year is also one of the toughest on a personal level. All this means that
students actually benefit from the writing center tutorials on a personal level
too lending further support to my view that remedial work is of vital concern
at an establishment such as our own.
In
Conclusion: The Importance of Remedial Work
It is sad but true that remedial work
and help for those experiencing problems with the syllabus are being neglected
in the hurry to speed up ‘through put’ – the pressures to make way for ever
increasing numbers of students coming in each year being enormous and driving
university administrators to distraction. A system such as the one described
above however, is easy to set up and keep going; what is more, the rewards are
enormous: ‘through put’ is increased due to the fact that students find the
support they get helps enormously to increase their individual success rates
both in the short term and in the long term as reading habits, intellectual
curiosity and good study skills become entrenched. The writing center helps
students who would otherwise have difficulty keeping up with the ‘system’ to
get on the right track and fulfill their potentials, and as such is very
rewarding for tutors who are fortunate enough to take on such a task. It is not
the whole answer by any means but it is an important and feasible step in the
right direction; especially in the current age of technology where the internet
can also help with ‘the teaching’ provided students know where and how to look.
APPENDIX
Below you will find one of three reading
activities on aspects of the same problem and the sample writing activities.
All these reading activities are available on http://theproproom.blogspot.com
STUDENT
‘ADDICTION’ TO TECHNOLOGY SIMILAR TO DRUG CRAVINGS STUDY FINDS
By:
Andrew Hough
Published:
The Daily Telegraph; 8 April 2013; www.telegraph.co.uk
Alternatively, just google the title and writer’s name
Level
of Difficulty: *
Note
to the Student: This task should be covered in conjunction with “Twitter and
Facebook Addicts Suffer Withdrawal Symptoms” and “Toddlers Becoming so Addicted
to iPads They Require Therapy”. The writing tasks involve all three so don’t
attempt them until you are ready.
BEFORE
YOU READ
·
Read the title of the text. Do you
believe this kind of addiction is possible? Explain.
·
What are the symptoms of addiction?
·
Would you describe yourself as an
addict?
·
Do you know any addicts?
QUESTIONS
1.
What proof do we have that college
students are addicted to technology?
2.
What symptoms did the students in the
study who didn’t use their gadgets experience?
3.
What does “These” in the phrase
“These included emotions such as …” refer to?
4.
Which of their reactions to lack of
technology came as a surprise to the students?
5.
Why did the students in the study
experience all these reactions?
6.
In the study at Bournemouth
University, what were the students allowed?
7.
What hypothesis did the study
confirm?
8.
What positive outcome was noted?
THE
FIRST WRITING TASK
After you have also completed the two
other related writing tasks, write a combined summary of all three
in no more than 100 words. Your teacher
will show you an example when you are done.
THE
SECOND WRITING TASK
Write a paragraph describing the
disadvantages of excessive use of social networking sites. Remember: you
will need to complete all three reading tasks first. Your teacher will show you an example when you are done.
STUDENTS
‘ADDICTION’ TO TECHNOLOGY ‘SIMILAR TO DRUG CRAVINGS’ STUDY FINDS KEY AND
TEACHER’S NOTES
It
is really wonderful to find three texts on a topical issue which have a wow
factor and also lead to a combined – three text summary. Don’t let the summary
scare you; it is very straightforward I assure you. I would suggest putting a
few notes on the board or the screen, repeating the process for the other two
texts and then crossing out repetitions – of which there are plenty. What is
left will be very easy to summarize in a 100 words. The longer writing task
should follow the summary; it isn’t an either or proposition; they both need to
be done I feel. Examples are available under Sample Essays.
1.
Nearly four in five students had
significant mental and physical distress, panic, confusion and extreme
isolation when forced to unplug from technology for a whole day.
2.
Cravings, anxiety attacks, depression
3.
The words the students used to
describe their emotions
4.
The psychological effects ( is
enough; you don’t need the rest)
5.
Because they have spent their whole
lives plugged in
6.
Landline telephones and books
7.
That students were addicted to modern
technology
8.
The students got into more in-depth
conversations; OR, a difference in conversation in terms of quality and depth
THE
FIRST WRITING TASK: COMBINED SUMMARY OF THE FOLLOWING THREE TEXTS:
·
Student
‘Addiction’ to Technology ‘Similar to Drug Cravings’, Study Finds
·
Twitter
and Facebook ‘Addicts’ Suffer Withdrawal Symptoms
·
Toddlers
Becoming so ‘Addicted’ to İPads They Require Therapy
Addiction to technology is a modern
phenomenon including toddlers as well as adults. Denial of access to gadgets
causes withdrawal symptoms similar to those of alcoholics and drug addicts in
all age groups and a host of social problems especially in young children.
These children find it difficult to form healthy relationships later in life.
The quality and depth of adult conversations suffer too along with daily
chores. Although social networking is
now a fact of life and those with no accounts are called vagrants of the
digital age, moderation in the use of technology is advised.
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Words
THE
SECOND WRITING TASK: THE DISADVANTAGES OF EXCESSIVE USE OF GADGETS SUCH AS
MOBILE PHONES AND İPADS
Reading
related writing activity: The reading texts are as follows and are in the file
marked Level*:
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Toddlers
becoming so addicted to ipads they require therapy
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Twitter
and Facebook addicts suffer withdrawal symptoms
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Student
addiction to technology similar to drug cravings study finds
In the modern world, our lives have shifted,
at least partly, to the virtual world thanks to all the opportunities provided
by modern technology. Smartphones, androids, ipads, computers and all the
hundreds of apps available provide us with the opportunity to lead a parallel
existence; that is if we become too fond of all the above. Becoming too fond of
technology, in other words getting addicted to it, has countless negative
effects the first and foremost being withdrawal symptoms, which are both
physical and psychological. This is true for adults as well as toddlers all of
whom need therapy to kick the habit and get their lives back. Although social
networking provides countless opportunities for socialization, carried to
extremes, it can affect the quality and depth of conversations people have in
daily life. Daily tasks and chores also get neglected; not to mention the
physical effects of being glued to a screen 24/7. Toddlers and young children
are the worst effected as these young addicts find it difficult to form healthy
relationships and if they are not treated, find their teens to be a very lonely
period. To sum up, although the countless advantages of modern technology can’t
be denied, we should exercise moderation to avoid the countless disadvantages
of our cherished gadgets.
