Reading books

Topic: Some people think reading books is more useful in developing young people’s language skills and imagination than watching TV. To what extent do you agree?

Brainstorm: General topic: Reading books is more useful than watching TV in developing young people’s language skills and imagination.

Reading books is more useful: (1) The more you read, the stronger your imagination becomes. (2) Reading is an active participant, but watching is a passive action. They influence our behavior because they make us less active. (3) The more reading you do, the better you become at creating plots and characters, which will promote your language skills at the same time. (4) We cannot control the speed of TV programs, but can arrange a reading process.

Watching TV is more useful: (1) More vivid, we can directly listening, watching, feeling etc. (2) Broaden our horizons, which can make us to be more imaginative.

Conclusion: Reading books has more advantage than watching TV in individuals’ development of language skills and imagination.

My essay: Books have existed as a medium of recording and transferring knowledge of the world for thousands of years, whereas television is only a modern invention existing for no more than half a century. It is no doubt that reading books is superior to watching TV, in terms of developing people’s language abilities and thinking.

The great disparity between these two kinds of learning method is that book is a static medium, whereas television program is a dynamic medium. Of course, the images in a television program are much more vivid, because we can see them gorgeous and dynamic on a large screen. In contrast with them, the images we “ see” in a book are only our own imagination. Reading books exercises our imagination, but watching television bulls them. Imagination, likes a muscle, needs to be used as frequent as possible, the more read, the stronger imagination becomes; otherwise, it can disappear.

When we read, we are an active participant in our own enjoyment. That is one reason reading develops the imagination. It is a process that translating the word on the page to the images in our mind. But when watching TV, it is a passive procedure. The television programs are giving everything, there is nothing comes from us except our reaction to what we are seeing.

Reading books also develops our language skills, like storytelling skills. Some plots in television are so simple, because the emphasis is on action rather than on language or character development, that we can predict what is going to happen before it does. Conversely, we can practice the skills through reading books, say, detective novels and mystery fictions. And the more reading you do, the better you become at creating plots and characters.

Needless to say, contemporary way of watching TV has its own advantages which reading books does not have. But, there are more merits of books than televisions in the development of individual’s language’s skills and imagination.