2017年7月2日托福写作考情
综合写作

独立写作:
　　
A city wants to help teachers of its high school students (age14-18) improve their teaching. It is considering two plans:
1. Choose a small group of excellent teachers; these teachers will attend a class led by an expert for additional training in how to teach effectively, and they will then come back to their schools and provide that training for other teachers in school.

2. Provide additional training in teaching effectively for high school teachers, using online material that each teacher will study individually.

In the face of fierce competition from international students and decline of local students’ interests in academic study, the government needs an effective plan to improve education quality of high schools. Undoubtedly, for any plan to take effect, the first step is to train teachers who are directly responsible for students’ study. In my mind, between options of training a few at first or training all of them online at the same time, the latter one must be a better strategy.

In consideration to efficiency, training all teaching staff online can help the government improve overall education quality in short time. Teachers usually have different schedules, so it must be difficult to have them together frequently in a seminar. Possibly, the compulsory training will arouse complaints. However, thanks to the wide coverage of Internet, teachers can easily access training materials at any place and any time individually and flexibly. Moreover, as high school teachers, they must possess the consciousness and capability of studying on their own. Therefore, with all teachers starting to study at the first time, the process can be greatly simplified. On the contrary, it costs twice as much as time to train a few elite teachers who then convey what they obtain to peers back to school.

In consideration to effectiveness, training all teachers online together will generate an atmosphere of positive competition and cooperation. It is more encouraging that all teachers begin at the same starting point. There can be a private account for each participant that records his or her studying progress and ranks among peers. In addition, trainees of all schools can freely share their thoughts and get inspiration from each other on the giant cyber environment. Under peer pressure, teachers will become more involved and active. However, another proposal of selecting a few good teachers getting training will run into troubles at the initial stage. The problem lies in how to select the “good teachers”. It is difficult to set a convincing standard that is agreeable and acceptable to all. A foreseeable outcome might be the emerging of bias between those selected and unselected.

To sum up, the wise choice of the government to improve education must be providing online training to all teachers together.