The English Trainer

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 spoke with a student last week about confusion which had arisen from looking up how to conjugate 'can' from a website. I think some of these websites do not distinguish between normal and modal verbs and generate the content automatically. So the future of 'can' from verbix.com is ' I will can' when in fact you would say 'I will be able to'. This worries me as people use the internet so much now for studying English that there is content out there that is plainly wrong. For English grammar, I would recommend going old school, and getting a physical copy of Essential Grammar in Use by R. Murphy.

Language learners often have something known as 'spiky profiles', they are not equally good in the four sections of language learning (reading, writing, listening, speaking). For example, if you learned English by watching films in original English with the subtitles in your own language, then your listening skills are probably quite good. Although, that doesn't mean that you can write if you have never practiced that skill. The key to helping students is to identify these areas where they have weaknesses and focus activities on those areas, while building on their strengths. It's not only skills that the student has but also their mindset and motivations. If, for example, a student needs to pass a speaking test and is very shy, and unwilling to talk, then the teacher needs to build their confidence up so the student has a decent chance when they get into the room with the examiner. On the other hand, a very outgoing student who loves to talk but makes lots of errors of...

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.