TOEFL® essay sample: Should boys and girls be educated in different ways?

[Grace]

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
Boys and girls should be educated in separate classrooms using different teaching techniques.

Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

Since men and women have different positions in society,many may raise the question if boys and girls should be taught separately.In my opinion,it's better to educate male and female in the same environment rather than keep them apart.

First,I think it's not a good idea to put boys and girls in different classrooms,or even in different schools.As you know,there are more and more high schools or colleges specially for boys or girls now in our city,but there are few for kindergartens or elementary schools.How does that happen?The most important reason,in my perspective,is that the teachers and parents who send their kids to these gender-mixed schools expect that their young will get along with most of the kids in his or her classroom,no matter boys or girls.But parents start to worry about their children to behave badly with the other gender as they grow older,for instance,more parents are anxious about their daughters,wondering if they have fallen for some certain boys and thus paid less attention to their study.This worrying is understandable,but I think we should also consider this question:will kids behave better in an environment where there are only boys or girls? In my point of view,it will be only better if you tell the kids how to deal with the relationship with others in a right way,rather than preventing them from seeing certain people.

Despite the problem of educating in the same classroom,I think it's also wrong to use different teaching techniques due to the gender differences. I agree with the idea that certain people have certain ability to learn and accept what has been taught,therefore different ways of teaching can be used towards different levels of students.But this definately doesn't mean we can devide the students into two groups because of gender. We should only use different teaching techniques to people with diverse acceptance of knowledge.

All in all,I still hold the opinion that students should not be separated due to their gender.It's not right to educate boys and girls in separate classrooms,neither is teaching them with different techniques.

[Grace]

This is the one I wrote today for my first model test.
I haven't been writing for a while,and I find this one kind of childish...
And the second paragraph seems too long compared with the following.
What do you say?

[Alan]

Hi,

Since men and women have different positions in society,many may raise the question if/WHETHER boys and girls should be taught separately.In my opinion,it's better to educate male and female in the same environment rather than keep them apart.

First,I think it's not a good idea to put boys and girls in different classrooms,or even in different schools.As you know,there are more and more high schools or colleges specially for boys or girls now in our city,but there are few for kindergartens or elementary schools.How does that happen?The most important reason,in my perspective,is that the teachers and parents who send their kids to these gender-mixed schools expect that their young will get along with most of the kids in THEIR classroom,(no matter) BE THEY boys or girls.But parents start to worry about their children behavING badly with the other gender as they grow older,for instance,more parents are anxious about their daughters,wondering if they have fallen for certain boys and thus paid less attention to their study.This worrying is understandable,but I think we should also consider this question:will kids behave better in an environment where there are only boys or girls? In my point of view,it CAN only BE better if you tell the kids how to deal with the relationship with others in a right way,rather than preventing them from seeing certain people.

Despite the problem of educating in the same classroom,I think it's also wrong to use different teaching techniques BECAUSE OF the gender differences. I agree with the idea that certain people have A certain ability to learn and accept what has been taught,therefore different ways of teaching can be used towards different levels of students.But this definItely doesn't mean we can dIvide the students into two groups because of gender. We should only use different teaching techniques to people with diverse acceptance of knowledge.

All in all,I still hold the opinion that students should not be separated BECAUSE OF/BY REASON OF their gender.It's not right to educate boys and girls in separate classrooms,neither is teaching them with different techniques.

This is a good piece of writing and is quite acceptable.

Alan
_________________
English as a Second Language
You can read my ESL story The Name of the Game

[Grace]

Thanks Alan! I really appreciate it.

I'm not so sure about using "(no matter) BE THEY boys or girls",why do I have to express it in this way?

And I got really confused with the phrase "due to"/because of..
Actually I think this is the very first time I've used the former one, I don't really know where to use it even though I see other people use it all the time.

Could you help me with a little bit of that?

[Alan]

Hi,

'Be they' is a subjunctive form and seems to me preferable to: 'no matter whether they are .....'

'Due to' really means as a result of as in: The late arrival of the train was due to the bad weather. I feel what you need in your essay is to explain the reason for something and I think 'because of' is preferable.

Alan
_________________
English as a Foreign Language
You can read my EFL story Word Story: Search Engines

[Englishuser]

Hi Alan,

Do you think 'due to' is wrong in this particular context?

EU