One surprisingly useful area to teach or reinforce in speaking is syllabification. Students may not realize that a. every syllable has a vowel sound, and the written letters may or may not correspond to the vowel sound; b. every word has at least one vowel and vowel sound, therefore at least one syllable; c. every word with more than one syllable has at least one syllable that is stressed, e.g. sy-lla-bi-fi-CA-tion (Technically the syllables are divided between double consonants in writing, but that's more advanced.) Already those are basic ideas you can reinforce. Doing this will also help with spelling and therefore with writing and even grammar. Then you can introduce the fact that in unstressed syllables in English there is often/usually a reduction of how the vowel is pronounced; these vowels become either schwa or short-i. This is because those two vowels are easiest to say. So only the stressed syllable will have the vowel pronounced "clearly."
Thank you so much for these tips! Here I was stressing over how to get university beginners to achieve a decent band score, when I should be focusing more on getting their foundation prepared. I appreciate it!!
I have IELTS classes exceeding 15 up to 25. Do you have any suggestions on how to manage IELTS with large numbers. I have been teaching Speaking skills now for some 11 years here in Vietnam, crossing the line into reading and writing as skills associated in Speaking. Do you advise taking on the reading and listening partitions as separate class sessions. The majority of Speaking time tables are for 1.5 hours, twice a month at my current Language school. Chris Motley - UK national native speaker.
If we are talking about the overall grade, then likely the areas they are struggling with will be speaking and writing. Everyone gets lower scores in these areas. Students aiming for an 8 or 9 really need to take on much of the responsibility themselves and pretty much immerse themselves in English on a daily basis. You can encourage this by setting them daily reading tasks and TV programs they have to watch which you can both discuss later on. Also, start introducing higher-level materials which will push them harder. I.e. texts from NG, Time, or good broadsheet newspapers also get them to watch native-level news and documentaries for their listening. You also need to give detailed feedback for their writing style and speaking, especially pronunciation mistakes as well as spoken errors. The focus for band 7+ is they become a proficient user of English, which really means polishing up their productive skills.
Is there anywhere that teachers can find good resources (like suitable simple texts)? Thank you for making your videos, they're very helpful! (I'm going to be teaching my first pupil this weekend, he's currently at a level 4 at most, and we need to fast track him to 6.5 in a year and a half for him to get to uni.... eek)
Yes, that's going to take a lot of dedicated work on his part. Make sure you help him with a detailed study plan with a lot of reading (about a topic he's interested in) and lots of TV shows. Basically vocab heavy! If he's around a band 4 now, you might want to work with some general English textbooks for that level (A2ish) and work with one of the lower level Complete IELTS books. Basically it's a question of getting his general level up. He could learn IELTS techniques in a couple of months, but pushing your score up 2.5 band scores is really all about building vocabulary and fluency both in speaking and writing. Also look into a graded reader, this will be a really good source of lower level reading materials but also a fun homework task.
@@TheEnglishGrind thank you! He's got a bit of a mental block with learning vocab so that's a bit of a first point of focus. Excuse my ignorance but what is a graded reader and where do you find them?
I believe you are saying that it needs time for him to get things prepared, imagine if your Ielts is just 1 week from taking it,it would be a total bump in the road.
One surprisingly useful area to teach or reinforce in speaking is syllabification. Students may not realize that a. every syllable has a vowel sound, and the written letters may or may not correspond to the vowel sound; b. every word has at least one vowel and vowel sound, therefore at least one syllable; c. every word with more than one syllable has at least one syllable that is stressed, e.g. sy-lla-bi-fi-CA-tion
(Technically the syllables are divided between double consonants in writing, but that's more advanced.)
Already those are basic ideas you can reinforce. Doing this will also help with spelling and therefore with writing and even grammar.
Then you can introduce the fact that in unstressed syllables in English there is often/usually a reduction of how the vowel is pronounced; these vowels become either schwa or short-i. This is because those two vowels are easiest to say. So only the stressed syllable will have the vowel pronounced "clearly."
Thank you so much for these tips! Here I was stressing over how to get university beginners to achieve a decent band score, when I should be focusing more on getting their foundation prepared. I appreciate it!!
He is a very good teacher...
Thank you for watching!
Great video! You really have an amazing skill for cutting to the chase and getting straight to the most important information.
Cheers Jonathan!
I have IELTS classes exceeding 15 up to 25. Do you have any suggestions on how to manage IELTS with large numbers. I have been teaching Speaking skills now for some 11 years here in Vietnam, crossing the line into reading and writing as skills associated in Speaking. Do you advise taking on the reading and listening partitions as separate class sessions.
The majority of Speaking time tables are for 1.5 hours, twice a month at my current Language school.
Chris Motley - UK national native speaker.
What's the best teaching approach for those students who don't know how to express themselves about the IELTS questions or topic?
Very helpful
Hi! A reply would be so helpful. I've to get someone up from a 6/7 to an 8/9. Any advice?
If we are talking about the overall grade, then likely the areas they are struggling with will be speaking and writing. Everyone gets lower scores in these areas.
Students aiming for an 8 or 9 really need to take on much of the responsibility themselves and pretty much immerse themselves in English on a daily basis.
You can encourage this by setting them daily reading tasks and TV programs they have to watch which you can both discuss later on. Also, start introducing higher-level materials which will push them harder. I.e. texts from NG, Time, or good broadsheet newspapers also get them to watch native-level news and documentaries for their listening.
You also need to give detailed feedback for their writing style and speaking, especially pronunciation mistakes as well as spoken errors.
The focus for band 7+ is they become a proficient user of English, which really means polishing up their productive skills.
Is there anywhere that teachers can find good resources (like suitable simple texts)? Thank you for making your videos, they're very helpful!
(I'm going to be teaching my first pupil this weekend, he's currently at a level 4 at most, and we need to fast track him to 6.5 in a year and a half for him to get to uni.... eek)
Yes, that's going to take a lot of dedicated work on his part. Make sure you help him with a detailed study plan with a lot of reading (about a topic he's interested in) and lots of TV shows. Basically vocab heavy!
If he's around a band 4 now, you might want to work with some general English textbooks for that level (A2ish) and work with one of the lower level Complete IELTS books.
Basically it's a question of getting his general level up. He could learn IELTS techniques in a couple of months, but pushing your score up 2.5 band scores is really all about building vocabulary and fluency both in speaking and writing.
Also look into a graded reader, this will be a really good source of lower level reading materials but also a fun homework task.
@@TheEnglishGrind thank you! He's got a bit of a mental block with learning vocab so that's a bit of a first point of focus. Excuse my ignorance but what is a graded reader and where do you find them?
I believe you are saying that it needs time for him to get things prepared, imagine if your Ielts is just 1 week from taking it,it would be a total bump in the road.
😅gd😅