English Essay

[jrivera]

Ok, I feel a bit embarrassed asking you to correct this essay. But I need it, because I am sitting an exam in 15 days. I'm also willing to help other people with corrections, traslations or whatever, but I didn't find many threads here needing corrections. Maybe in next days...

Anyway, thank you in advance for taking the time to read it.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents are the best teachers.Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.


The first question that comes to my mind when I think about this statement is if we are talking about learning academic or theoretical issues and moral or ethical values, because there are important differences. In any case, I think parents can be better teachers than professional teachers, as they have an emotional bond with their children. However, this would be only true when teachers and parents have a similar level of preparation and motivation to teach.


In this sense, if one of your parents is a literature expert or a professional writer, it is probably better to learn literature or writing skills from them, than from anyone else. If this is not the case and you want to learn this subjects, you should better look for a trained teacher. I mean, if you have the chance to learn from someone of your family, who is an expert in a given subject and with whom you may have an emotional connection, it would be perfect. But this is not the usual situation.


When it comes to learn values, it could also be better to learn them from parents, who have the emotional authority to transmit moral principles to their children. Anyway, this also depends on the ability and capability of the parents to teach about these issues. Not everybody is prepared to teach a children how to behave in live.


Another important factor that should be taken into consideration is the relation between parents and children. Normally, we could expect it to be a good relation, but this is not always true. And if there are problems in parental relations, for sure children are no going to be willing to learn from their parents.


In resume, I believe that the personal or emotional connection is very important in teaching relations, so parents are in a good position to teach their children. But – and this is an important “but” - parents are not usually prepared to teach about the many things that children need to learn, nor they usually have the time to do it properly. That is why professional teachers are so important in a modern society.


Furthermore, looking this issue from a sociological perspective, we should also acknowledge the social need to have similar curricula for all the children. This is the only way in which we can assure that everybody shares some basic ideas, broadly accepted by their society, instead of allowing the development of erratic interpretations of so important subjects as history, science, ethics, etc. If all the children's education rely on their parents, this fragmentation of curricula could be a more than possible consequence.


Balancing psychological and sociological perspectives, I would conclude that in special situations parents could be the best teachers, that is when they are prepared to teach or when they are experts in a given subject. However, this cannot be a common situation for everybody, and we should take it as an exception from the general rule, which is all the children needing professionally trained teachers.

[caliber1]

Originally Posted by jrivera

Ok, I feel a bit embarrassed asking you to correct this essay. But I need it, because I am sitting an exam in 15 days. I'm also willing to help other people with corrections, traslations or whatever, but I didn't find many threads here needing corrections. Maybe in next days...

Anyway, thank you in advance for taking the time to read it.

Question: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Parents are the best teachers.Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.


The first question that comes to my mind when I think about this statement is if we are talking about learning academic or theoretical issues and moral or ethical values, because there are important differences. In any case, I think parents can be better teachers than professional teachers, as they have an emotional bond with their children; however (this is the way I was always told to do this in school because your thought did not completely end, it was just delayed a little bit), this would be only true when teachers and parents have a similar level of preparation and motivation to teach.


In this sense, if one of your parents is a literature expert or a professional writer, it is probably better to learn literature or writing skills from them rather than from anyone else. If this is not the case and you want to learn these subjects, you should better ("better" is not needed) look for a trained teacher. I mean, if you have the chance to learn from someone of("of" sounds odd, but does work. I would use "in") your family, who is an expert in a given subject and with whom you may have an emotional connection, it would be perfect. But this is not the usual situation.


When it comes to learning values, it could also be better to learn them from parents, who have the emotional authority to transmit moral principles to their children. Anyway, this also depends on the ability and capability of the parents to teach about these issues. Not everybody is prepared to teach a child how to behave in life.


Another important factor that should be taken into consideration is the relation between parents and children. Normally, we could expect it to be a good relationship, but this is not always true. And if there are problems in parental relations, for sure children are no going to be willing to learn from their parents.


In resume, I believe that the personal and emotional connection is very important in teaching relationships, so parents are in a good position to teach their children. But – and this is an important “but” - parents are not usually prepared to teach about the many things that children need to learn, nor do they usually have the time to do it properly. That is why professional teachers are so important in a modern society.


Furthermore, looking at this issue from a sociological perspective, we should also acknowledge the social need to have similar curricula for all the children. This is the only way in which we can assure that everybody shares some basic ideas, broadly accepted by their society, instead of allowing the development of erratic interpretations of such important subjects as history, science, ethics, etc. If all the children's education relies on is their parents, this fragmentation of curricula could be a more than a possible consequence.


Balancing psychological and sociological perspectives, I would conclude that in special situations parents could be the best teachers, that is when they are prepared to teach or when they are experts in a given subject; however, this cannot be a common situation for everybody, and we should take it as an exception from the general rule, which is that all the children need professionally trained teachers.

I hope this helps you more than it does confuse you. This is how I would change it so definitely get some other feedback as well. Very nice job by the way

[jrivera]

Thank you very much Caliber1!!

I'm taking note of all your corrections. Some of them are a bit complicated, because they refer to complex grammar constructions, such as:

- which is that all the children need professionally trained teachers.
- If all the children's education relies on is their parents,

But I think I understand all of them. )

[Don José]

-If all the children's education relies on is their parents,

I thought "is" was a typo.

[jrivera]

So, would it be better to say: "If all the children's education relies on their parents...."??

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Creo que depende de lo que quieras decir: "si en todo lo que se basa la educación de los niños es en sus padres..." or "si toda la educación de los niños se basa en sus padres..."

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Don José

I thought "is" was a typo.

No no, it is quite correct.

Edit: sorry, no it's all wrong.
If all the children's education relies on is their parents
should be
If all children have to rely on for their education is their parents....
But rather awkward.

Originally Posted by jrivera

So, would it be better to say: "If all the children's education relies on their parents...."??

No, this sounds wrong, because the 'their' refers to 'parents of children' whereas the subject is 'all the education'.

Better would be

If children have to rely exclusively on their parents for their education.

[Perikles]

(duplicate post)

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by jrivera

and we should take it as an exception from the general rule, which is all the children needing professionally trained teachers.

I haven't read it all, but I noticed this common error with the definite article. In English, it is not used for general concepts:


All children are young (all in the world)
All the children in this room are young (specifically these, not others)

All examples of grammar are useful (everywhere)
All the examples of grammar in this thread are useful

[jrivera]

Thank you Perikles for that corrections. I'll bear in mind what you say about articles.

About the other phrase. What I wanted to say was: "Si toda la educación de los niños depende (o se basa) en sus padres..." As Angelica points.

Anyway, I will stay with: "If children have to rely exclusively on their parents for their education"

I understand that is very important to be clear about which is the subject to avoid errors!