Here is a summary of my journey to achieve my IELTS goal and some tips that I find useful. Because I am not an IELTS teacher or teaching assistant, I only share these tips below as a group study mate with everyone, so please read the post for reference. Each person will have a different learning style and ability to absorb. Let’s learn from each other! You can also give me some interesting advice!
1. Listening 🌟
For Listening (8.0), I study mainly on my own. Usually, in one day, I’ll spend time on at least two listening tests. In addition to listening to academic IELTS, I also listen to some short BBC English podcasts or songs by One Direction and Taylor Swift in the early morning to feel more motivated and interested. Some websites where you can practice listening for yourself in the same format as the real test are Study4 and Ielts Online Test… With Study4 I suggest practicing Cam from 13 to 17 (if your goal is high) and then gradually switching to Ielts Trainer or Ielts Online Test when you feel more confident.
I also often get the question: “Why do I practice all the time but the band still doesn’t improve?” This is quite common when we started self-studying for IELTS and I even faced this problem before. Sometimes practicing listening to difficult listening tests will not help us to raise our level. Here are some tips I would like to share with you:
- First of all, know your abilities and practice listening to short and simple tests first and then gradually head for more difficult ones.
- Secondly, enhance your vocabulary. Only when you have vocabulary, will listening be greatly improved. You can rely on Transcript after completing the listening test to listen to it again and pick up new words or Destination B1, B2. In addition, you also need to remember those words and the apps I have been using to support vocabulary learning include Quizlet or Memrise.
- Third, don’t pay attention to keywords, try to understand at least 50% of the entire conversation. Currently, listening tests have been more challenging by paraphrasing a lot!
- Fourth, try to get used to pronunciation and speed when listening. You can listen to dictation to get used to the speed and reflexes when listening.
- Fifthly, this tip is the one I have learned from IELTS MUSKETEER. Listening will go through 4 steps. You can read the Transcript first, learn the vocabulary, and then start listening without doing the test, trying to get used to the pronunciation and speed of the reader. Next, you can do the test, after which please check and list the parts that are often wrong and find ways to correct them.
Listening goes through four steps. You can read the Transcript first, learn the vocabulary, and then start listening without doing the test, trying to get used to the pronunciation and speed of the reader. Next, you can do the test, after which please check and list the parts that are often wrong and find ways to correct them. Note: A listening test takes 30 minutes with 40 questions. If you intend to take a computer-based IELTS test, the listening test will give you very little time to fill in the answers (about 2-1 minutes), so you should try to listen and fill in the answers at the same time, limiting the taking of notes.
2. Reading 🌟
In Reading (8.0), this was a skill that I had a hard time with before. At first, I used to practice Reading with a skimming technique which means reading and filtering keywords. However, it didn’t seem to be effective. Only when I began to change to a new way of reading, reading and understanding with the order from top to bottom and immediately answering the questions for that passage, did Reading gradually become easier.
In this way, you can do the following steps (e.g. for a reading session consisting of 4 paragraphs): Read the first paragraph, make sure to read the entire paragraph, and look to the questions section to see if there are any questions about the information mentioned in paragraph 1. When answering questions, pay attention to all questions in each section. You can use the highlight tool to avoid losing key words or important information. And for the rest of the paragraphs, do the same.
3. Writing 🌟
With Writing (6.5), I chose to study with mentors as Writing was the skill I found the most challenging. It was very hard to develop ideas, outline and get used to different types of writing!
I used to take a writing course by Xuân Phi Ielts, which helped me get used to the format of Writing Part 1 and Part 2. Until the last 2 weeks before the exam, I started writing and getting tested to get more experience and ideas for the real test. And I had a chance to be instructed by Bí Nguyen. With a 1-on-1 assignment, he will show you how to develop your ideas and write convincingly as well as pre-evaluate the band score for each writing test, helping you know your strengths and weaknesses. I also learned a lot of advanced and interesting phrases from him. Therefore, the tuition fee for the course, for me, is a bit high! You can consider many different mentors and centres to find out the best suitable for you!
4. Speaking 🌟
With Speaking (7.0), I also study mostly by myself. When I was in 11th grade, I was accompanied by ICAN IELTS, (course consisting of 15 lessons). Here I had the most basic touch with Speaking, how to generate ideas as well as practice simple topics. After that, I started to know about forecast sites like ieltsbro and started practicing speaking with my friends (combining similar topics). Part 1, this is the part where you would make an impression on the judges. For me, this part doesn’t have to be too perfect so I usually pay more attention to fluency and arrange ideas accordingly. For each question in this section, Nhi usually gives about 3 answers, which make up a short paragraph. For example, the question “Do you like chocolate?” -> Yes, of course (1: yes/no). I’m a sweet tooth so chocolate is my favorite dessert (2: the reason why). Sometimes chocolate can help calm me down after a stressful day at school (3: other aspects: benefits). Part 2, is the part where you have to develop a story, a small paragraph based on the cue card given by the examiner. You will have about 1 minute to prepare and 1-2 minutes to speak. In this section, you should pay attention to your speech speed and fluency. For each question, you could develop many different views on the answer. Using collocations and idioms will be even better, but not too much! Keep word and phrase choices appropriate to the context. The final part 3, this part requires that you, in addition to vocabulary and fluidity, have certain knowledge to help you express your opinions more confidently. I encourage you to give different answers to questions asked and avoid duplicates. For this part, the way to develop the idea is quite similar to that of writing part 2: point – explanation – example – result, but you don’t necessarily need to mention all four of these parts, I usually choose about 2-3 parts to create a complete answer. above. In the past, I often practiced with my mates on websites idvielts, Study4.
Above are the sharing tips I applied for for my IELTS study. Hope you guys find them helpful and achieve your IELTS aiming band score on the first time you take the test!
Be the twinkling stars,
Nhi Bui