Some IELTS candidates help themselves
Most experienced English language teachers, both general and IELTS focussed, can quickly identify students that will succeed in their studies and progress as English language users. It only takes a few hours classroom contact before experienced teachers can make a judgement on how well an individual English language student is going to do. Very often we can identify which students are going to find it more difficult to reach their IELTS target grade. (more…)
What not to write in the IELTS exam
An IELTS student told me that he had spent the whole weekend studying for the IELTS writing exam. I was impressed – this student was known to be a little lazy sometimes and I was impressed that he was finally taking his IELTS exam studies seriously. I was not looking forward to the extra marking that this student might reasonably expect me to do. I asked him how many pieces of writing he had written. The answer was none. Zero. The student hadn’t written anything but had spent the whole weekend studying for the IELTS writing exam. I was confused but pushed for time so I didn’t ask too many questions.
I taught the same student the following week in his IELTS class. I gave the class a timed piece of writing to complete during the class because I was concerned that many of the students in this IELTS weren’t as familiar with the IELTS writing exam time contraints as they could be. I did some administration while the students scribbled away in silence. The “hard-working” student suprised me by finishing the piece of writing with 10 minutes to spare. (more…)
Position of adverbs
He ate quickly his breakfast.
Can you identify the adverb in the above sentence? I am sure that you know it is quickly but can you see what is wrong with the sentence? Out of a class of 14 advanced students, 5 made this mistake yesterday. That’s right!! 5. Five. FIVE. Clearly, the adverb is in the wrong place and these advanced students should have known this. They are all capable of scoring an overall IELTS band score of at least 7 but 5 of them still made this basic mistake. Do you know where the adverb should be in the sentence? More importantly, do you know why it must go there? (more…)
Skim reading a text
Many IELTS students fall in to the trap of trying to understand every word in a reading text and their reading speed suffers. Many students seem to be trained to start reading at the first word of the reading text and continue word by word until the end is reached. These students set themselves the target of understanding every word and every sentence of the reading text – they are not satisfied unless they can reach this level of understanding. (more…)
20 years and have helped over 22 different nationalities improve their English language skills. I understand how important a good band score in the IELTS exam is and I know how to help you achieve your target grade.