WHAT CAN YOU MAKE OUT OF THIS?

What can you make out of this?

NO! Not that!  THIS! A Task One line graph. A famous one!

How To Support Your Ideas in Task 2

Look up there at the top of the blog! In the pages toolbar! Where it says Slides *NEW*. That's where you can find the .ppt versions of workshops and talks I do.

Like the one from last night.

Causes/Solutions , Opinion to Extent, Positive/Negative Development - Catching Up

With a Discuss Both Views question, you can't CHANGE the reasoning behind one view!

What's the difference between these two possible beginnings to a discussion essay and how that ?

1. Some people believe that tourism should be banned in certain areas, while others believe... 
2. Some people believe that to protect local culture, tourism should be banned in certain areas, while others believe... 

 The difference is in what you need to think about before you begin writing.  In #1, during your pre-writing brainstorming, you'll want to think of reasons

9/9/6.5 Club - Pankaj's Struggles to get to Where he Should be.

Pankaj B was not the first IELTS candidate I had come accross whose English must've been really good (I'm an English teacher by trade, I should acknowledge that you can't determine someone's real aptitude without a placement test - which in some ways, the IELTS is). Here now was this guy who was so depressed, not understanding what went wrong, while everyone else was in awe of his Facebook post with his double-9's  in reading and writing.

IELTS Elvis shows up to turn Pankaj's TO What Extent essay into a song!

Coming on Thursday, 11 July

A couple weeks ago, I delved into the essay-is-a-song analogy and took it about as far as I could. With the writing competition on my mind, We did about 30 minutes on "how to write a poem/song out of nothing ".
Well, as it turns out, there's still more in the bucket! This time, it came out of a business English class I was teaching, and because I had

The 9/6.5 Club - Why You Shouldn't Be Trying to get a Band 7 in Writing

I'm only talking to some of you right now. 

If you've taken the IELTS before and received  8.5's or 9's in the receptive skills (reading & listening), an ok score in speaking (7+) and a 6 or 6.5 in writing, you're in the 9/6.5 Club.

If you've posted your extremely disappointing results on Facebook and been inundated with CONGRATULATIONS! and requests for "tips" in reading and listening, you're in the 9/6.5 Club.

If you followed the advice of tutors who proscribed a particular structure that you should always use, one that was supposed to get you a 7 and it didn't, you're in the club. 

If you're getting 9's in some skills, an 8 overall and simply don't understand why you're stuck at a 6.5, welcome. 

You really don't have the same problems that your peers do. In part, your problem is that you know TOO MUCH English and are trying to use as much of it as you can. Another part of your problem is the same that half of all native-speaker university freshmen face when they enter tertiary education: they don't know how to write a simple essay. 

If your name is Pankaj and you live in Delhi (or New Delhi), it's now Project Pankaj PLUS... 

We'll start with Mr Gaharwal, whose recent writing score went DOWN from his previous test. 

That can't feel good. I sort of run out of steam and start falling asleep at the end of my commentary. I hope you get something from this and I'm open to any additional questions you may have. Gotta get in the shower and off to work. Got some English to teach.



As I note in the video, this question SHOULD HAVE included the line "and give your own opinion". It didn't. Use better sources.

How to Improve Your IELTS Listening Score through understanding your mistakes.

How do you improve your score in the listening paper of the IELTS?

Well, the best way is to spend hours and hours listening to diverse materals like TED talks, movies, podcasts and various other ways of hearing natural voices - the way English is naturally spoken by native English speakers, like you'll hear in IELTS listening.

But that takes a lot of time.  Aren’t there any tips or tricks? Some short cut I can take.