Topic 17 Do you learn better by yourself or with a teacher? Learning is a lifelong theme of every person

Learning is a lifelong theme of every person. How brilliant your achievement will be to some degree depends on whether you can learn anything efficiently or not. Some people prefer to learn by themselves. They think that they can learn better in this way because they have more freedom, independence, and less pressure in their self-paced (самостоятельное) study. There is some truth in it, but they fail to see the many advantages of learning with a teacher. As far as I am concerned, I would like to learn with a teacher.

The column marched along the road; - Колонна шла дорогой.

Firstly, when you are a beginner to a new subject, a teacher is able to provide you with a lot of fundamental knowledge, which is ready to become a solid basis for your later knowledge system. As we all know, entering a brand new area of knowledge usually demands sharp altering of minds and a gradual accumulation (постепенное накопление) of new information. Without a teacher as a guide, you could still march along this road but at the cost of large amount of time and unpleasant experience. However, equipped with a certain amount of basic knowledge, which resembles a map (напоминающее карту), you will easily steer clear (избежать) the obstacles barring on the beginning of your long journey. And that knowledge is what a teacher will help you gain without troubles.

Secondly, The storage of concrete knowledge is one matter, while understanding how to learn a certain subject of knowledge is another. As many students confess (Поскольку многие студенты признаются), it usually takes them quite a long time to find a way of learning suitable to a special subject. Again, a competent teacher is the key to this problem. The teacher will equip the students with some insightful (проницательный) views over the whole subject and much rewarding experience (полезный опыт) in overcoming difficulties of the subject. For example, a teacher of a Computer Programming Language will certainly let you know lots of rules in programming that is probably hard to accumulate by yourself. Some people may argue that to learn with a teacher will lose some kind of freedom. For instance, heavy load of assignments will eat up too much time. But a good teacher will take control over such assignment so that the load is only sufficient for students to strengthen what they have learned. It seems that this turns out to be another advantage of a teacher.

In short, I prefer go to class, studying with teacher to guide and urge (заставлять, побуждать) me. I choose to learn in a big family - my school. If I was obliged (urge) to learn by myself without a teacher or classmates, I would feel very sad and lonely. There would be no fun, no pressure, and no motivation. I could not learn well in such dull and depressing circumstances.