The English Trainer

I had the pleasure recently of teaching a very dedicated and enthusiastic student who in a very short time scale, managed to pass IELTS at a grade higher than she needed. It's such a good feeling to have worked with someone who put so much into her studies, to get where she needed to be. She is now on to pastures new (leaving a present situation for a new one) and I wish her all the best. I am now teaching a new student, who is at the beginning of his journey which will culminate (end) with him taking his English exams in the future. It can seem like a long way, to get to where he wants to be. He asked me recently, "do you think it's possible that I will pass this test?". Part of my job as a teacher is to encourage my students, and help steer them and push them to achieve their goals. So what I said to my student is that with enough preparation, looking at past papers and practice, yes, it is not only possible but likely that he will pass the test. This advice goes fo...

At the end of a lesson today, one of my students asked me to help her ring an airline that she had booked tickets with, and was unsure about doing it. Calling people on the phone is notoriously hard as there is no body language to use to help you understand what is happening in the interaction. As I have lived and worked in a foreign country myself, I know exactly how hard this is. So I helped her make the call and press 2 for the extension she required. Only to be cut off, three times. It got me thinking, maybe IELTS should have in their listening test, a genuine call centre automated reply and the students have to choose which button to press. It's actually something that if they are living and working in an English speaking country, it is a life skill they need.

There was some confusion amongst my students last week when one student had seen a video on the internet which had some tips for the speaking part of the IELTS exam. One of the tips was to use fillers such as 'urm' when speaking to try and sound more like a native speaker. It is true, native speakers do use fillers such as 'urm', when they are trying to think of what they want to say. It is also true that some native speakers overuse these fillers. There are however, other filler phrases which you can use if you want a bit more time to think. "Oh, that's an interesting question, my opinion would be..." or even the simple, "I'm sorry, I didn't quite hear that" to get the examiner to repeat the question and give you some more time to think. You can also paraphrase the question to give yourself more time to think. "Why do some people choose to read the news on the internet rather than in a newspaper?" You could say out loud to your...

I was talking to a student the other day about how to fill in the listening and reading parts of the IELTS test. He wondered if he should write in capital letters. This is a very good idea especially if you have concerns over the legibility of your writing. A lot of us now do not hand write very much anymore, and perhaps our writing is more messy as a result... Capital letters make it easier for the examiner to see what you wanted to write, so yes, for the listening and reading parts, I would recommend using capital letters on your answer sheet. For the writing section, writing in capital letters is not practical, as there is such a short amount of time to write the essays, and writing in capital letters would take too long.

I am an experienced TEFL teacher with a PGCE qualification. I offer IELTS exam training, English conversation, Business English and academic writing classes. I am usually available between 9am and 3pm GMT weekdays in person in Dundee, Scotland or on skype. Please email to discuss your exact tuition requirements.