IELTS Task 2: Essay Writing Fundamentals

Welcome to this very important guide to writing IELTS essays. While this guide is not going to teach you how to deal with each essay type, it is going to give you a strong base for them. So, get ready and let’s get started.

Understanding the Task Format

Can you look at these 4 different essay topics and see what is the same for all?

The common part is this: all 4 essays are basically in two parts.

• Part 1: The topic
• Part 2: The instruction

There are also many differences. For example, the discussion essay topic has two viewpoints while the agree-disagree essay has one. The positive-negative essay topic is a situation while the agree-disagree essay topic is a statement. These differences are why each essay type needs to be learned separately.

However, despite these differences, some things about essay writing stay the same. For example, you and your friend are two different people with different looks, but you both still have one nose, two eyes, and one brain, right? In the same way, even these different essay types have a lot in common.

Learning these ‘in common’ parts is the secret to building a good base for later when you learn each essay type.

Requirements of a Good Essay

A good essay is like a machine. Why do I say this? Just like a bicycle must have GOOD parts, GOOD connections of the parts, and no UNNECESSARY extras, a good essay must have:

• Three parts: The topic, the position, and the arguments.
• Good connections of these parts: through good paragraphing
• No unnecessary extras: Like general statements at the start.

Don’t worry if all of this is new to you. We will cover all of this in detail (and more) in the coming sections.

Ideal Paragraphing Structure

IELTS essays are usually written in a 4 or a 4 paragraph structure. Both methods have their good points, which we will discuss later. But for now, let’s just assume that a good essay must have 4 paragraphs. Each of these paragraphs plays a very specific role in the whole essay.

• Introduction: Introduces the essay topic and the writer's position.
• Main Body Paragraph 1 (MBP 1): Gives arguments to support the position
• Main Body Paragraph 2 (MBP 2): Gives arguments to support the position
• Conclusion: restates the position and gives a summary of the arguments used to support the position in MBP 1 and MBP 2.

Now let’s understand each part in detail by writing a whole essay step by step. For this, we would need a topic. Here is the one we will work with:

Some people believe that robots will take the place of human teachers in the classroom in the near future. Do you agree or disagree?

Note: We are not learning how to write agree-disagree essays. Agree-disagree is a more complex essay type that needs learning a number of methods.

Introductions

As you know by now, the first sentence of your essay should be the topic itself. However, you should avoid copying from the task as it is. Instead, you should rephrase, that is present the topic in your own words. This is usually done through the use of synonyms, words that have the same meaning. Let’s try this on our topic which is:

Some people believe that robots will take the place of human teachers in the classroom in the near future.

Here is how I would change it:

Some people think that robotic teachers will replace human ones in the classroom in the coming years.

As you can see (the parts in bold) I have used a few synonyms to express the same topic in different words. For a more detailed guide on rephrasing, you can read this: [Link to paraphrasing guide]

The second sentence of an essay should show your position. But what is a position? In simple words, position simply means your general opinion on the matter. More specifically, it means your exact answer to the asked question. The essay asks us this question:

“Do you agree or disagree?”

So, our answer to this must make it clear which side we are on. Here is what I would write:

I completely disagree with this viewpoint for a number of reasons.

Here is our complete introduction:

Some people think that robotic teachers will replace human ones in the classroom in the coming years. I completely disagree with this viewpoint for a number of reasons.

Note: A good introduction is always clear and short. Somewhere around 30 words is a good target.

Main Body Paragraphs

You can think of the position as the ‘pedal of your ‘essay machine’ while the main body paragraphs are the ‘wheels. Just like a good bicycle’s wheels should move in the same direction as the pedals, a good essay’s main body paragraphs should argue in favor of the position.

If your position is disagree, every single sentence of your main body paragraphs must support this position.

A good structure for a main body paragraph is to start with a short sentence. This is the main idea. After this, you can write longer, more complex sentences to support that main idea. Remember, once the main idea is there, any sentence after that must only stick to that main idea. For instance, if your reason for disagreement is the lack of emotions in robots, then the whole paragraph should be about that.

You will see the above principles being followed below in the main body paragraphs. Here is how I would write them:

”One major problem of robots is their inability to show emotions. Emotional intelligence is an important teaching skill, as it is key to a teacher's ability to understand their students and to motivate and encourage them when they feel low on confidence. It is hard to imagine a classroom working without these two essential parts, which would be the case in a classroom with a robotic teacher.”

Your essay can have 2 main body paragraphs, about 100 words each, or even 3, with about 65 words each. The benefit of the 3 paragraph approach is that you have to explain your points less. For today’s sample answer, we will use this second approach. Here are the rest of the 2 paragraphs:

”In addition, keeping discipline would be a challenge for robotic teachers. This is partly because students could refuse to take a robotic teacher seriously, but also because discipline itself is a complex human idea that would be hard for a robot to understand. How would a robot, for example, tell real laughter in a classroom from one that could be seen as misbehavior?

Finally, rigid robotic teachers might have a hard time with changing education trends. Unlike human teachers who keep updating their knowledge, a robot's fixed information limits its ability to include new teaching methods, technologies, or current events. This could lead to outdated education, hurting students' learning in a constantly changing world.”

Conclusion

The last paragraph is where you wrap things up by restating your position and giving a summary of your points from the main body paragraphs. In our essay, it can be:

”In conclusion, I find the idea of robots taking the place of human teachers in the near future unrealistic because of their lack of emotional intelligence, inability to keep classroom discipline, and the limit of having fixed knowledge.”

Final Sample Answer

Here is the final sample answer:

Some people think that robotic teachers will replace human ones in the classroom in the coming years. I completely disagree with this viewpoint for a number of reasons.

One major problem of robots is their inability to show emotions. Emotional intelligence is an important teaching skill, as it is key to a teacher's ability to understand their students and to motivate and encourage them when they feel low on confidence. It is hard to imagine a classroom working without these two essential parts, which would be the case in a classroom with a robotic teacher.”

Your essay can have 2 main body paragraphs, about 100 words each, or even 3, with about 65 words each. The benefit of the 3 paragraph approach is that you have to explain your points less. For today’s sample answer, we will use this second approach. Here are the rest of the 2 paragraphs:

”In addition, keeping discipline would be a challenge for robotic teachers. This is partly because students could refuse to take a robotic teacher seriously, but also because discipline itself is a complex human idea that would be hard for a robot to understand. How would a robot, for example, tell real laughter in a classroom from one that could be seen as misbehavior?

Finally, rigid robotic teachers might have a hard time with changing education trends. Unlike human teachers who keep updating their knowledge, a robot's fixed information limits its ability to include new teaching methods, technologies, or current events. This could lead to outdated education, hurting students' learning in a constantly changing world.

In conclusion, I find the idea of robots taking the place of human teachers in the near future unrealistic because of their lack of emotional intelligence, inability to keep classroom discipline, and the limit of having fixed knowledge.

Need More Sample Answers

I have a lot of FREE sample answers on the website which you can access here: [Link to essay samples]

In all essay samples, you will see the same basic ideas being followed.