Creating and Maintaining a Position

Welcome back everybody. In today’s election. Continuing with the task achievement band descriptor category. Going to think about how to create and maintain a position or opinion in the response when and how to express yourself. This is quite a long election. So be prepared. But we’re going to go in depth regarding when we should be stating our opinion and in which way we should be doing so. First of all let’s remind ourselves of the bad descriptors. So maintaining and stating a position is one of the most important factors for achieving a high band score in this area. So present a clear position throughout the response. Something you must do if you want to achieve band 7 with some tasks. This requirement is fairly simple to meet with others. It can cause a little bit of difficulty but remember that we do not need to give an opinion. If the task does not ask us to give an opinion this is the case with discussion essays and most situation essays. A First of all think about approaching the task. Consider the following question. Government investment in the arts such as music and theatre is a waste of money. Governments must invest this money in public services instead. To what extent do you agree with this statement. So what are the key words here. Hopefully you pick out the investment in the arts. Waste of money and public services instead. And then you could think about what your opinion is on each of these key words on each of these different areas of the task. Let’s break it down in a little bit more detail. First sentence. Government investment in the arts such as music and theatre is a waste of money. Do you agree or disagree with this single statement. Let’s imagine that you disagree with this. You don’t think it’s a waste of money. What about governments must invest this money in public services instead. Do you agree or disagree with this. Let’s imagine that you partly agree. Notice that you can both agree and disagree and still have a coherent opinion. This is even easier to do in a TO statement question like the one we are looking at. Notice the two statements above rather than mine. Let’s have a look at how we would write this opinion in the introduction. Are stating our opinion in the introduction is important as we need to present a clear position. There’s that key word throughout the response throughout. So from the beginning in the lecture incredibly quick introductions we took a brief look at how we might introduce our opinion to the reader. Here was that formula again. The number one general statement and to paraphrase the tusk language and number three write an opinion. And if you’d like to you can also think about writing a plan as well. Here’s an example. It is important to consider how governments should spend its money. Some believe investing this money in the arts is wasteful and that all these funds should be diverted to public services. Now here’s the opinion. While I disagree that the arts are a waste of money I do feel that some of this funding should go to public services with a focus on this introduction here and take a closer look. Three things are very clear from this introduction. Number one we in understand in full what the task opinion is what the opinion being presented is. Number two we are stating a clear view of our own that we disagree and agree with different parts of the task. And finally that our view is 100 percent relevant to every part of the task opinion. We’re giving relevant ideas. Another key part of the task requirements. Now how do you put your opinion into the body. While this kind of depends on which type of essay we’re going for in opinion and discussion and opinion says your opinion must be clear within the body of the essay and it must be consistent with the opinion in the introduction so don’t change your mind halfway through for discussion opinion essays the opinion should come across in this format. Start with the side that you disagree with and use language which makes it clear that it is not your view. Like those who believe in the second body paragraph. This is where you introduce your view and you make it clear that it is your view. However I would argue with opinion says so little bit different. You can just use to begin with. And furthermore because it is just your view you are giving. So again we just have a look at the one above. It’s that language. Those who believe and I would argue that that makes it clear which is our opinion and which is other people’s opinion whereas down in the opinion say unless you explicitly state otherwise the content of the body of an opinion essay will be deemed to be your own view because in your introduction you would have said I believe and you would carry that on. So you don’t really need to eat too much personal language like I believe in the body of an opinion. So now let’s think about something a little bit more subtle here which is qualifying your opinion will explain what that means in a moment. Sometimes you will not fully agree or disagree with the statement. Sometimes you will only partly agree or disagree or be split for and against pretty much 50 50. In these cases do not just side with one view because it’s easier. Except maybe in extreme circumstances where the task could be extremely difficult. If you did decide to go in this direction you need to be developing your English for genuine purposes not just for I else. So it’s good to learn language that we can use to help us when we partly agree or partly disagree with something. And this is what qualifying is so we can use qualifying language certain phrases and expressions which we’re going to look at here. So qualifying your opinion these phrases will do that. It depends on or it is dependent on. Make an exception for the passive. An exception should be made for only to an extent or only up to a point only in some cases should take into account should be taken into account. So expressions like these can help us to qualify our opinions. But they do so in slightly different ways. And here is an exercise that I want us to complete. Now I want you to have a look at these sentences here and see if you can use the expressions from the previous slide and put each one into the correct gap on this slide so you can put a pause the video here. You can slide backwards in the video to look at those expressions again see if you can put them into the correct gaps here. And when you’re ready to hit the play button and you can continue. Okay let’s see what we have here. So number one. However I believe the arts should only be funded up to a point or to an extent because there needs to be enough money to support public services. So up to a point basically means like yes do it. Just don’t do it too much. The should be a limit. Will point to an extent too. While it is important for university students to receive financial assistance I believe their family background should be taken into account. Here should be taken into account as should be considered. Take into account equals consider number three although I am mostly a against taxing unhealthy foods. I believe an exception should be made for food which contain artificial preservatives and then we support that. An exception should be made for make an exception for do it differently for a small number of things or a small number of people. Just a small number. Number four I believe the government should offer financial incentives to the public for recycling but it depends on what is being recycled. So it depends on sort of on the condition that you know depends on. This is probably the one that you would be most comfortable with and you seem many times and used many times in the past. It’s still very very useful for qualifying our opinion. And finally number five the argument for requiring all criminals to undergo community service is one I am in favour of but only in some cases. So not all the time but sometimes it depends. Again that depends on it depends on the particular case on the particular situation. So a lot of these are quite similar to one another. But you do need to be using them at the correct times. Finally let’s think about how we can state our opinion in the conclusion. Now we do look at how to write a conclusion in the lecture. Quick conclusion but here are some important points to bear in mind in discussion opinion essays. Make sure you cover the alternate viewpoint and its arguments as well as your own. So you’re trying to summarize both viewpoints and their arguments. For example you can see this here. This is a good template for how you would rate a discussion opinion conclusion. In conclusion although as today’s your view point an argument although viewpoint as argument I believe this viewpoint because second argument with opinion says you don’t really need to look at the alternative viewpoint you can just look at your own. But do make sure again you’re summarizing your supporting arguments and make sure your opinion is as clear as possible. So here’s a template here. In conclusion due to this argument and this argument I believe that this viewpoint Let’s have a look at how that looks filled in. First one in conclusion although building accommodation is important as it combats homelessness. I believe we should invest more in green spaces because doing so provides a better quality of life for citizens. So you’ve got the alternate viewpoint boogeying accommodation is important and the argument it combats homelessness and then our view point. We should invest more in green spaces. And the argument because it provides a better quality of life and with the opinion essay due to the importance of individual cultures and the danger of war those are two arguments that we would have put in our two body paragraphs and then the viewpoint. I believe that under no circumstances nice expressive language here should minority languages be allowed to perish. Okay so that’s the type of language we want to see and a conclusion. And just to finish up here I’m going to leave you with some strong opinion language. If you ever want to put a croshere opinion with a little bit more strength and enthusiasm you might want to think about using expressions like these. Experimenting with expressions like these. So long lecture today but hopefully a comprehensive and thorough look at how you can use create and maintain an opinion in your task to essay. See you in the next lecture.