IELTS: It is unrealistic for a school to provide so called parenting training for its students

Nowadays, some people suggest that our schools should provide some sort of parenting training course for their student to study. I total disagree with this. The reasons are listed as following.

Firstly, I do not think that settling this sort of courses in school is meaningful, since it still has a long long way to go for those students to become parents. It is very hard to image that our children have to prepare for something which might happens in a long time after. Like me, before I was 26 years old, I did not even consider that I would get marry with someone, not to say to be a farther.

Secondly, the topic about whether parenting can be trained is still controversial. Generally speaking, every family has its own way to cultivate their kids. It is difficult to say one is better than another. I believe that training child is not like working in a assemble line where people are trained to improve product's quality. We have to find our own way to educate our kids.

However, I have to admit that the experiences that are gathered from school, will more or less influence the way their educate their kids in the future. For instance, we may use the same methodologies as our teachers did to us, to teach our own kids. Besides, the characters like patience or responsibility that we have learned or trained form school should be the key factors as to be a good parents.

In conclusion, I think it is unrealistic for a school to provides so called parenting training for its students. Because it is too early for a student to acquire this sort of information and which is not something that can be taught.

Mark, the first thing I need to comment on is the fact that you supplied an incomplete essay prompt. So I am not really sure about the content or how to review the paper. I hope you can supply the full prompt as soon as possible so that a more accurate review can be done. For now, I can give you a general review of your essay, I can improve upon the comments and suggestions after you supply the prompt.


- Revise this. This is an incomplete introduction. There is no restatement of the thesis nor introduction to the topic. So we have no real idea as to what you are disagreeing with and why.

- What courses are being offered and why? How does this affect parenting in the opinion of its supporters and in your point of view? There is a lack of clarity in the paragraph.

- Why is it controversial? What are the parenting problems that exist today and how is it being addressed? Will parenting classes really help? Are there studies to prove it is effective or not effective? Present supporting evidence.

- Do you think you would personally use these parenting classes when you become a parent? Why or why not? This will directly relate to your opinion on the topic. Use supporting examples whenever possible.

- Don't present new ideas in your conclusion. Just restate the prompt. give an overview of facts, then repeat your opinion. If you want to keep this paragraph, you will need to write it as a separate paragraph and develop its discussion further.

Once you clean up the aforementioned problems of the essay, we will clean up the grammar problems next. There is no sense in correcting it now because you still need to change the content of the essay which will affect the succeeding revisions to the paper.

thanks Louisa, the topic is : Some people believe that children should have formal training at school to become good parents. Do you agree or disagree?

Mark, thank you for supplying the full prompt so fast.I have already listed my comments and suggestions for the improvement of your paper above. I am encouraging you to try and apply those suggestions in the revision of your paper. That is so you can compare your first version with the second version, noting the improvement from one paper to the next in terms of content and discussion.

Feel free to experiment. Develop the essay further. You have the time to do that in the paper. Just make sure you don't go past 5 paragraphs in length so that you will be able to leave ample time for revision and editing during the actual exam. You need to be able to practice doing those under time constraints as well. Remember that simply typing words but not really saying anything or having a truly developed idea will not help improve your score or increase you chances of passing.

I am looking forward to the possibility of reading a revised version of your paper. We are all on board with helping you improve your writing skills before you take the test so feel free to ask questions if you are confused about something ok? We are here to help you out :-)

Hi Louisa, thank for you suggestions. But before I revise this paper, I want to know what does this topic really asking for? This topic really confused me a lot.

I think this topic is asking whether schools have to provide parenting training courses about how to become a good parent. Is that what the topic means?

What is your opinion? Thanks in advance :)

Mark, the paper is asking you consider a trend that is somewhat common in American schools these days. In high school, their students are paired into father and mother partnerships with either a bag of flour or a raw egg to take care of for a week. They are given a schedule of feeding, changing, and sleeping time for their "children" and they have to follow the schedule given to them or the "child" will die or have an accident. If something happens to the egg of flour sack, they fail the class. This is a lesson in parenting and responsibilities.

I am not sure but I believe that the lesson is taught as part of sex education classes and is an effort to teach teenagers about the dangers of pre-marital sex and introduce them to the world of parenting in such a way that they will reconsider having unprotected sex since unprotected sex can result in unexpected pregnancies at their ages. The main objective of the lesson is to show them how hard it is to be a parent and the repercussions of irresponsible parenting.

From what I understand of the prompt you presented, certain schools outside the U.S. also want to try the same experiment in order to help educate students about proper parenting and the responsibilities that come along with it. After all, taught in school, the students will develop a simple understanding of parenting that they can take with them into their mature family years.

You can use the explanation I used above as a basis for writing your new opinion essay on the topic. I hope I was able to clarify the requirements of the topic for you. Please don't hesitate to ask questions if you are still confused about how to write the paper. We are here to help :-)

Hamed, never take a quote from the person advising the original poster who had quoted the original work in the first place. Always take it from the original content. In this case, you should have taken the quote from Mark and not from my advice to him. Doing so could end up insulting the person who is trying to advise the OP. Also, try to offer original advice that the previous adviser or advisers might have missed. Do not just repeat what has already been said. You can however, reinforce the advice given by agreeing with it and then adding your own advice to the thread.

Right now, you just took a quote from my advice thread and told me that I need to improve the content. Study it further and you will see that it is Mark who made the original statement and not me. Always refer to the original post when quoting. Look at my post and you will note that not only quoted the very same text from him but that I told him the introduction was incomplete and he needed to fix it. You basically just repeated what I told him while also telling me that my work on an essay, that is not mine, is incomplete. That is very irresponsible of you. I repeat, do not take quotes from the person offering advice. Always use the original posting in order to avoid future misunderstandings in the thread. Thanks :-)