OK. let's start with home and house:
What your teacher is saying makes sense. A home is a place where you have created a living for yourself, you are attached to it emotionally, it somehow becomes a part of you - it carries the notion of comfort, security, happiness and the like.
Edgar A. Guest said this about a house and a home ( an American poet):
"It takes a heap o livin' in a house to make it home".
House is more like a structure - there's no particular emotional aspect to it.
There is a saying that goes: A house in which nobody lives is nobody's home.
A house will turn into a home once there are people in it that will create their own special environment for themeselves.
It's also important to remember that people make their homes in places
other than houses like caves, cliff dwellings, huts, igloos, wigwams, etc. It's what you make of that place that counts and is special enough to call it a home.
All the info you have on motels and hotels is right. Motels are close to highways for easy access, they much smaller than hotels and therefore cheaper to run.
You will find a good explanation on Guru:
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=motel
for the definition of a hotel:
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=hotel