The Elderly - Part 1

Welcome back everybody. Now in this course the way that the lectures are set up is that we’re going to look at two different tasks for each of the different question types. So in the previous lecture we were looking at a discussion essay and we’ll be doing the same thing here but with a different topic. The aim with these essays is to look at a slightly different topic for every different task so that you get a range of ideas that you can use in a range of different circumstances and then you also get to learn a range of different topic related vocabulary as well. So we’ll go through the usual process here looking at this question if we read this one together. We have many elderly people are no longer looked after by their families but are putting their homes or nursing homes what are the advantages and disadvantages of this trend. So just like last time as I just said we have a discussion as a very very simple. Advantages and disadvantages. A good way to just consider whether it’s going to be an opinion or a discussion pure opinion or pure discussion is to look at the conjunction the conjunction here. And you’re not being asked to decide between one or another you’re being asked to talk about both advantages and disadvantages. There are some exceptions to this but a good rule to keep in mind is to think about the conjunctions when selecting the question type. So we have a discussion essay here and now we have to think about the key word so what are the key words here. Well I would argue that elderly people this is the main topic here really we’re looking at elderly people elderly people are no longer looked after. So it’s no longer basically means not anymore but it wouldn’t work we wouldn’t say Not anymore. Look after the structure which sounds strange but we can say no longer. Nice bit of vocabulary in the task. They’re no longer looked after by their families. So we definitely want to highlight that but are put in care homes or nursing homes pretty much the same thing. Really there is only a very slight difference that doesn’t really matter too much in terms of the task and that’s that nursing homes have to have registered nurses on hand at all times there is care homes they still have 24 hour staff but they may not always be registered nurses. I really think they’ve just put both in there just to make sure you understand what is being spoken about to give you a better chance of understanding the task. And then we have of course what are the advantages and disadvantages of this trend. OK so step one step two both completed step three. As always is to write a plan. So now we can consider what we’re going to write for our plan. And just like last time advantages in the first paragraph disadvantages in the second paragraph and we’re going to set it up quite similar to last time. So I wonder if you can think back and recall the way that we set up our paragraph in the previous essay we started with our first point our first advantage I’ll come under the topic sentence so we might say. I would say nursing homes care homes as I just mentioned registered nurses all 24 hour staff. Clearly both are much better equipped not just in terms of the staff though but in terms of the facilities available. Either way they are better equipped to help old people. So we’re just really better equipped. A little spelling mistake. Better equipped. And move over into the support sentence or the support sentence. We could say it about how they’re better equipped but to me that immediately indicates an example the first idea that comes to mind is an example an example of the facilities that are contained within nursing homes that you do not tend to find in family homes things like lack of stairs. You know most nursing homes were either they lack stairs or if they do have stairs they are required to also have elevators or stairlift. So no stairs or stair less elevators. So there’s our example. Now what’s the result of this. Why is this a good thing. Well you can either look at this as a support sentence or result however you want to tightly say as a result all this means that. So this means that’s the type of problems the old people tend to have particularly with regard to their mobility. They are accommodated for. Let’s say something like that. So you say mobility or motion problems how are you want to put it mobility problems are accommodated accommodative might not be the best term because it sounds a bit like they’re welcoming the problems. But what we really mean here is that we’re adapting ourselves to meet those needs but I might change that a bit later. Now what do you think will come next if you think back to the previous essay that we looked at. We were looking at a question just like this and what did we do when we got to the fourth sentence. Hopefully you’re telling me that we looked at another advantage because it’s part of the Tarsh requirements and that’s what we’re going to do here. We’ll call it t2. You can Tipler whatever you want. Whatever’s easiest is just another advantage. Another point and again to be quite similar to the point I made earlier they’re better equipped but not just in terms of facilities but also in terms of staff. So we have the appropriate staff to help them. What you don’t get at home and the other thing that we did in the previous essay is we also looked for a source of context or source of reference or source of contrast and we found that in continual assessment if you look here if you look at our key words we’ve also got the same thing that we can apply here. The word families so in this last sentence here I’m just going to look at the alternative and the families they do not have or they rarely have people who possess the same skills or start something like that. So families are rare to have these skills. I’ll turn that into a sentence later but I think that looks pretty good. So we can move on to the disadvantages. Now last time in the topic sentence all I said was that there are some problems that there are some disadvantages. This time I’m actually going to include one of the disadvantages in that topic sentence and the idea that I have in mind it’s the most obvious one that appears to me and I might even write that it’s obvious a bit later is that there is a lack of loved ones in the close vicinity. So that’s definitely a struggle for people who live in nursing homes and care homes. Now in my support sentence I’m going to use a complex sentence I early have it in mind that I want to talk about something that is possible but that it’s not good enough it’s not enough. So was say when we get there something like while you can have friends come and visit you it’s not really enough. And this can lead to things like loneliness. We’ll just put in the words here. Let’s say it’s possible for friends to visit possible visits but loneliness is the result regardless OK because the visits are often the not very frequent let’s say. OK. Now the third sentence I want to go a step further. I want to talk about the results of the loneliness so loneliness is a problem in and of itself but it also creates another problem because loneliness has been shown to increase the risk of depression and it can even weaken the immune system which is very dangerous for elderly people who already have compromised immune systems. A lot of the time. So we can say things like our risk of depression and weak immune system are just going to tie us here to save a bit of time and then just like last time we’re going to add another disadvantage because part of the task requirements even though we’ve kind of already done it here we’ve got two different disadvantages that is quite related to a lot of too. Another problem I can imagine is that people who live in nursing homes are surrounded by people who are often very ill very old nearing death and that’s got to be quite a depressing environment in a lot of cases. So we can say something like they are surrounded by illness death things like that will develop the sentence later and then again look at the result of that. What is the problem of being around this sort of illness and death are such an environment is likely to limits or decrease perhaps happiness and maybe even again if we come back to this idea here maybe even trigger really nice verb we could use that trigger depression. Hopefully I’ll remember that later when I make that a bit shorter in the plan. OK. Now that was a lot quicker today with the plan. We can go quicker still of course and I would have been much faster if I wasn’t explaining each of my sentences. I remember trying to get those plans down to about five minutes but just make sure to give yourself one or two. Three key words for each of your cells this is in your boy paragraphs. This will actually speed you up as you go through the essay rather than slow you down about five minutes that you take at the beginning will save you maybe 10 minutes over the course of the essay and they will give you much more accuracy and fluency and cohesion at the same time. So it’s absolutely vital that you get this planning skill down. OK let’s move into the introduction now. OK. So like last time like with a lot of tasks really we’re looking at something that has changed and we’re talking about the positives and negatives of that change and that change has happened over time. Again like a lot of those tasks and last time we were looking at the same kind of thing. So we were able to use language like in recent years this has changed. This has risen in popularity. So another expression that we can use in this regard is this one here is increasingly common or it’s going in the opposite direction you might say it is increasingly uncommon or it is increasingly unlikely to find this happening increasingly that adverb that suggests a change a trend over time because so many tasks like this is quite useful to learn this kind of language. So it’s increasingly common for what to happen for families to send there. Now we have elderly people here. I’m going to use the word elderly or use the adjective instead of people I’ll make it more relevant to families and use the word relatives elderly relative families to send elderly relatives very important here you couldn’t really even say people because you’ve got it as a possessive. They’re people sounds a bit strange. Their elderly relatives to live in nursing homes. OK. That’s great. We don’t really need to take care homes or nursing homes or otherwise you keep saying over and over again. It really is OK just to pick one or the other and then you can kind of alternate as you go through. It’s not really a difference of British or American English like I say I think it’s just them giving you an extra chance to understand the task. So relatives live in nursing homes instead of or rather than we could go with rather than look after them we’ve got look after what’s a similar expression take take what take care of them at home as an in the family home. So it is increasingly common for families to send their elderly relatives to live in nursing homes rather than take care of them at home. Now just like last time and just like any discussion essay you should be able to finish this introduction with one more sentence. So two sentences overall. What is that second sentence. How does it begin. Well it’s a planned sentence and it begins as always like this essay will. This essay will and it’s going to be very similar to the one before. I don’t recommend memorizing phrases with the intention of just applying them to any essay that’s only going to backfire but do try to collect sentences and expressions that you can modify on the fly when you’re in the exam. That’s going to help you quite a lot in this case here. We can certainly use quite a similar sentence to the one we had before. So highlights some of the benefits and drawbacks so we change advantages and disadvantages and quite similar to before we’re going to use the the results from. And I’m going to use it in this case in the present perfect to again suggest that there is a difference between past and present which is what we talk about what the trends that have resulted from this. Now I could use the word trend but if I wanted to paraphrase I might use the word change as if we’re talking about a change in attitude a change in the way we do something. So moving from home to nursing homes or we could use the word switch as well to change rooms that have resulted from this which we look at all together. It is increasingly common for families to send their elderly relatives to live in nursing homes rather than take care of them at home. This essay will highlight some of the benefits and drawbacks that have resulted from this switch. OK. Now that looks really good to me. We’ll just check on the work there make sure he’s under 50 at 40 words. It’s a really nice number not too long not too short. We can move quite confidently into the first body paragraph now. So last time we began the body by saying to begin with the advantages to begin with the positives would look at something quite similar here but just to mix it up a bit give you some variance variation. You start with looking at looking at the positives. And in fact if you want to even improve that sense of cohesion you know show a little bit of listing show a little bit of ordering structuring. You can say looking firstly at the positives. So looking first look at the positives as always follow that with a comma and then very similar to last time. Last time we went with a crucial advantage this time we’re going to go with a significant advantage. Remember that is vital important crucial essential significant to be careful with these objects. They are not entirely synonymous. There are occasions in a number of occasions where one would not be replaced by another. But in this particular scenario here with a significant advantage you could replace this adjective with any of those other four adjectives. An important advantage and essential advantage a crucial advantage a vital advantage. And then of course as you have here a significant advantage would you be careful with those. Maybe have a look at some examples before you go replacing all of them with one another because it’s not going to work like that but it is a nice word to remember. Vises vices. OK. A significant advantage is that what do we have in our plan. We have better equipped so simple care homes. As I said we’re going to alternate between care homes and nursing homes care homes are not always remember to avoid the generalization. They are often much better equipped just like in the planning how to manage to help maybe to deal with could be a nice phrasal verb to deal with the need. So maybe the demands. Not to say that all people are demanding but they are they do have particular needs. And we can we can paraphrase here his demands with the demands of elderly people then and then I’ve got this comparative here better or better than what care homes are better equipped than family homes. Alternative again we’re making it clear that we’ve understood this part of the task as well. So looking first at the positives a significant advantage is that care homes are often much better equipped to deal with the demands of elderly people than family homes. If you make generalizations too often throughout your response you are not going to score anything above 7 7 is already high. But one thing that is made clear in the band descriptors is that in band 7 it says that there may be a tendency to overgeneralize. So you score about seven like that but that does not appear in band 8 which means you really need to cut that out if you want to go on and score in these higher bands. OK let’s move on to the second set. Now we’re looking at an example an example of how they’re better equipped. How do we start an example sentence for example for instance we know this hopefully already. So for instance what if we have no stairs Stellas elevators. So we’re going to move on to nursing homes now nursing homes do not again avoid generalizations. Very important because some of them will do not usually have stairs. OK. Now a calmer because I want to talk about the ones that do the ones that do you could you say the ones that do sounds a little bit informal to my ear and one’s the expression ones to reference is very difficult to use. Instead what I’m going to use is those which do for those which do as in those homes those nursing homes but we don’t need to use that part of the sense that we can make that it’s understood. So for those which do coma and then we have this part of the plan he said well it’s all right we both actually sometimes both but Wasco or stairlift or elevator’s needed to be by law they need to be installed would be a nice verb to use there. So for example nursing homes do not usually have stairs for those which do stairlift or elevators need to be installed. You can tell by the pauses that in taking when I say the sentence where those commas should be. Let’s move on to the following sentence. This is the support sentence. You can treat it like a result if you want. I’m just going to explain why it matters. When we explain it’s more like a support like this means this is important because this means that what we have here. Mobility problems the see the typical mobility problems which tend to up here. So they’re typical. They’re not always there. They tend to appear they don’t always appear which tend to appear among. OK. We could use elderly people we could use here particularly because we are looking at it in quite a medical context with this mobility problems here. We could use this word here. This might be new to geriatrics geriatrics to mean old people. OK. I would not use this in an informal setting a tool is definitely one for a more academic setting. But it does work in this case. So among geriatrics are OK and want to have down here is accommodated. I said that maybe that’s not the best expression. Maybe we could look at what is not happening to these mobility problems. They’re not being made worse because there are no stairs. There are there are steps to help them. So not made worse. That doesn’t sound so good to my ear but a really nice verb that we could use to paraphrase that is this one exacerbated exacerbated is to make a bad situation even worse. So now we come to the additional point that we wanted to make. You can see this down here this tea to say that we covered the requirement for advantages plural. Last time we used a Besides plus the previous point besides reducing cheating this time will be a little bit simpler about it but we’ll still be very cohesive. So we’re going to use the expression not only this not only this and that this refers to this previous point. So we’re still in a way being very cohesive we’re referencing and again we follow that with a comma. You can also say besides this but you wouldn’t be able to say not only reducing cheating. It doesn’t work that way. You could say something like Not only do exams reduce cheating. So you need to use the do plus a subject plus the completed thought I won’t get into that too much but notice here you can either have the besides this or not only this. Besides plus the previous point and you can do the same with not only if you switch the structure a little bit do ask me a question about that and the Q and A function. If you want more information on it. OK. Not only this but. So not only but typical structure. Not only this but now we have stuff but the staff who work at nursing homes have being professionally professionally trained a nice collocation to manage this so to manage the we have the demands of the elderly up above. So we say the needs of the elderly elderly people. Now I can say the elderly down here. OK. Now you’ll notice that I don’t use anything like how many staff will often or tend to it’s because it’s not really necessary here. If you work at a nursing home at least in the UK you have to have been professionally trained. So we don’t need to to change it to. So not only this but the staff who work in nursing homes have been professionally trained to manage the needs of the elderly. The last point I want to make is about families. The paragraph is already quite long. The essay is already quite long. 127 words so I’m going to make this final sentence relatively short and just talk about it you can see here that it’s quite rare for family members to possess the skills. That is exactly what I’m going to write. It is rare for family members to possess these skills and there is a sense of cohesion here thanks to the use of the demonstrated pronoun these. That way the reader has to go back to earlier in the sentence to work out a way of referring to the need. Sorry we were referring to the skills of managing the needs of the elderly. The sentence can not exist independently on its own and that’s what you should be aiming for when you think about coherence and cohesion. Great so now we can move on into the second half of the essay.