I know, I know, I know – not everybody likes grammar! In fact, even Nick hated it when he first started teaching. The problem, though, is that 25% of your score for writing and listening will be awarded based on your sentence structures. There are many places where students can make errors in the writing test, but day upon day, Nick and I see the same 3 common IELTS grammar mistakes again and again. What are they? Well, you will need to listen to find out!
Last week, we focussed on General Training Writing Task One and the importance of having the tone in your letters. Today, we move to Academic Writing Task One, to look at how you can tackle the tasks to make sure that you have clear key features and make comparisons. How are we going to do that? We are going to focus on ONE type of chart – IELTS line graphs. I think that this is the chart that students struggle with most, but is actually the easiest one to answer once you know a few simple strategies. And, guess what? Those are what we are going to show you in today’s episode!
Hey. Do you know the difference between a good IELTS letter and a great one? The tone! Writers who are able to engage with the question and write IELTS letters that feels AUTHENTIC are those who walk away with a 7.5 or an 8.0 for General Training Writing Task One instead of a 6.5 or 6.0.
Hey! It’s my favourite type of podcast – the one where I get to sit down and talk to one of our students whose IELTS journey has come to an end. In fact, this week it was Nick who sat down with Abdelaziz to find out how he was able to pass IELTS first time with an overall score of 8.0 (including an 8.0 for writing!). If you are looking for inspiration, motivation, or just good advice about what you can do to reach your target score, then stop listening to me, and start listening to our lovely student, Abdelaziz, who is our IELTS success Canada story today!
Hey! Today Nick and I look at five MORE reported IELTS essay topics from 2020. Yes, after the success of our first episode doing this, which is by far our most downloaded lesson (you can listen to it here if you haven’t already), we decided to once again breakdown five questions to show you how we would approach them.
Hey! Yes, it’s finally here – our episode about IELTS True False Not Given questions! TEN students requested that we have a lesson about this when we asked for listener questions two weeks ago, so I thought we would have a separate episode to go through how you should approach these questions, what you should actually check for when you are reading and, of course, how to choose between false and not given.
Yes! Today, I enter the “enemy camp” to talk to Katerina Polianskaya, the administrator at LT Pro, an IDP test centre here in St Petersburg, Russia, to find out what happens behind the scenes at an IELTS test centre. Honestly, I really didn’t think that Kate would be able to answer many of the questions that I had for her because I assumed that much of the information would be “sensitive”.
Yes! It is my favourite type of podcast episode – an IELTS question and answer session! Thank you to everybody who submitted a question on Facebook or Instagram (and if you are not following me there, you should be as I add free new material every week). If we don’t cover your query today, don’t worry – we will run another “ask an IELTS expert anything” episode again very soon!
If you are unsure whether or not the IELTS computer delivered test is right for you, then why not listen to our latest podcast, where Nick and I discuss the advantages and disadvantages of sitting the paper-based test versus the computer-based. Plus, this week, we got access to the official IDP PowerPoint that explains how you can control the computer during your test, so you can scroll down to watch Shelly talk you through it. Yes, another exclusive here at the My IELTS Classroom podcast!
One thing I have learned while running My IELTS Classroom is that many students need as much emotional support from me as academic guidance. However, I sometimes feel that I do not have the skills needed to help my students who are dealing with failure and IELTS stress management. That is why today, I am so glad to be able to share this interview with the psychologist and art therapist Beverley A’court.