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My IELTS Blog!

Here you’ll find our posts and podcasts on a wide range of subjects to help you on your IELTS journey! Join us at My IELTS Classroom today for our video courses, marking service, 1-2-1 lessons and so much more…

Our posts & podcasts

• All Posts, 
• Writing, 
• Speaking, 
• Listening, 
• Reading, 
• Grammar, 
• General Advice, 
• Podcast

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  How to teach IELTS

  27 July 2021

  How to teach IELTS Nothing is more rewarding as a teacher than working with an exam class that is motivated to learn and improve. In fact, as a former hockey player, I often compare the feeling to that of coaching a sports team – with the students being my athletes who are working together to defeat the “enemy” of IELTS (actually, that makes it sound more like war than a sports game, but you get the idea!) However, when are you ready as a teacher to start teaching exam classes? And, more importantly, once you are ready how do you start planning your classes? There is no one way how to teach IELTS, but in today’s podcast, Nick and I[…]

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  IELTS General Training Reading Multiple Matching

  20 July 2021

  IELTS General Training Reading Multiple Matching You know how some people like to relax by doing a crossword puzzle of a sudoko? Well, my ideal way to unwind would be doing dozens and dozens of IELTS General Training Reading Multiple Matching questions! You may think that I am joking, but I am 100% serious! Of all the IELTS reading questions, they are by far my favourite as they are quick and easy to complete and it is always clear when you have found the correct answer. So, join Nick and I today as we look at the three types of multiple matching questions to show you how you can master them. Below, you can find a summary of the episode, which[…]

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  Podcast – Improve your IELTS Coherence and Cohesion score by removing “people” from your essay

  13 July 2021

  Improve your IELTS Coherence and Cohesion Score One of the great things about working at My IELTS Classroom is that it gives me the chance to collaborate with a range of great highly-qualified teachers. Juliet has been working with us for over 3 years now and, as a teacher who specialises in Cambridge exams that are not IELTS, she always brings a fresh approach to her teaching. One particular point that Juliet has been focussing on recently in marking is encouraging students to move away from using “people” repeatedly in their essays. This is not something that I had considered before, but once she had pointed it out, I realised that doing this can make a massive difference to a[…]

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  Podcast – How to score an IELTS Band 8.0

  06 July 2021

  Almost every student we work with is aiming for a 7.0 or higher in the IELTS exam. However, this is not always the case. Sometimes students require an every higher score than this (or what I call a “very very high score”),  Take for example our doctors who need who need an overall 7.5, to register with the GMC or those applying to the NHS Foundation Programme who need a 7.5 in each module. In fact, occasionally, we are approached by students who need to score an IELTS Band 8.0. These are usually teachers who need to register in certain states in Australia, or people who need CLB10 or higher to migrate to Canada. However, how easy is it to score IELTS[…]

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  Podcast – What do we think of the essay questions in Cambridge IELTS 16

  29 June 2021

  Hey! On July 8th, the latest edition of the Cambridge series will be published. In celebration of this, Nick and I explain what makes these books such a powerful resource for IELTS test takers. Then, we will go through the 4 essay questions reportedly included in Cambridge IELTS 16 (Academic) to give our verdict on the new topics. Trust me – you want to listen to this, as one of them is unbelievably difficult! Below, you can find a summary of the episode, which includes all of the links to useful materials and the times of each part of the discussion (so you can go directly to the part you want to listen to) 🚀 Subscribe to My IELTS Classroom podcast[…]

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  How do I start preparing for IELTS?

  27 June 2021

  How do I start preparing for IELTS? Hey!  Many students feel confused when they start preparing for IELTS. With so much information online, it can be really hard to know how or where to begin to get the best results. In this post, I want to give you a simple step-by-step guide to starting your preparation for IELTS that is based on my experience as an ex-examiner.

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  6 IELTS lexical errors you probably make if you are Indian, Pakistani, or Bangladeshi!

  24 June 2021

  Hey! Here at My IELTS Classroom, we work with students from all over the world. In fact, one of my favourite things is keeping a list of all of the countries that our students come from. There are well over 100 now, which is absolutely mind-blowing! The great thing about working with such a wide-range of test-takers is that you start to see patterns in the mistakes that they make as a result of the influence of their first language. So, today, we are launching a new series of blog posts that focus on one region and their specific language errors. In this first post, we are going to look at the lexical errors made by our students who come from[…]

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  IELTS Cue Card Feedback 2021

  22 June 2021

  IELTS Cue Card Feedback 2021 Hey!  Last week, Nick and I set our listeners the challenge to record themselves attempting three current cue card questions. Today, we will be going through a selection of those recordings to give feedback and advice that we think will be helpful for every test-taker. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy listening to two ex-examiner’s giving a demonstration of how the IELTS speaking band descriptors are applied.

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  A Guide to Preparing for IELTS Cue Cards!

  15 June 2021

  A Guide to Preparing for IELTS Cue Cards! Hey! This week I published a new Blog Post called “3 steps to IELTS Cue Card Success“. It is a compilation of all of the advice that I have given over the last 5 years for IELTS Speaking Part 2 and is a basic guide to preparing for IELTS Cue Cards. In today’s podcast episode, Nick and I go through that post, adding more depth and detail to the advice. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you look at the post before listening to today’s episode so that you can make the most of the comments Nick and I add. Plus, we invite three of our British friends to attempt to answer some[…]

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  3 steps to IELTS cue card success!

  14 June 2021

  3 steps to IELTS cue card success! Hey! I have offered a lot of advice about how to tackle part two of the IELTS speaking exam on this blog in the past. In the past when I’ve received emails from students who were worried about their IELTS cue card performance, I point them to the individual blog posts and wave them goodbye and good luck. This week though, I got emails from FIVE students with this problem, and as I was answering them, I came up with something better – a three step plan that ensures success in speaking Part 2. I am so proud of it, I thought that I would share it with you today. Listen to Nick[…]

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• All Posts, 
• Writing, 
• Speaking, 
• Listening, 
• Reading, 
• Grammar, 
• General Advice, 
• Podcast