My sentence:
The Exchange between the teacher and the student promotes learning far different from that which results as the student listen but does not participate.
My teacher said "when" is more appropriate than "as" in this sentence, since "as" marks a duration, and "when" an instant or a shorter duration.
I don't understand the difference.
Best Answer
Here's a good version: "The Exchange between teacher and student promotes learning far different from that which results when the student listens but does not participate."
I agree with your teacher's judgment, but I'm not sure about the reason. I suspect that instead of time intervals, what is involved is giving an argument of the verb "result", and "as" does not work for that. "Result" has two arguments: a cause and an effect. "Which" is the effect, and "when the student listens but does not participate" is the cause. "From" would also work here to give a cause -- "... that which results from the student listening but not participating."
"As" doesn't work, because it just introduces an adverb, giving an accompanying circumstance; it doesn't specify an argument. I'll confess, though, I don't understand why "when" does work here to specify an argument of "result". But it does.