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. 

Breaking the Mold (for the most part) - Another Essay from the Nigerian Museums Guy

About a week ago, I wrote a blog with the click-baity title: Trying to get a 7 when you could get an 8. It got lots of views, and it contained advice which isn't for every IELTS candidate. In fact, it's probably not good for most, as most can't get an 8 because of their level of English.

I was pleased to see the guy I was writing about drop some of the structural aspects that were holding him back.

The Rare Direct Question Essay! And the Even Rarer Goal of Band 9!

You don't see it very often.

Gender equality?

No, not that!

A very rare type of Task 2 question. They are called "direct questions". Sometimes, direct questions are paired with another type of question, such as a best way or advantage/disadvantage, to create a two part question.  It is rare that you see them all by themselves.

The Task Two Blues - Joko Sings the "Almost got an 8 in TR Blues"

Okay, this was one my weirdest ideas yet. It started with a realization I had about the structure of an IELTS Task 2 essay and how most modern songs are structured.

The first line of a verse is like the topic sentence of a paragraph. Each subsequent line of the verse plays a roll just as the sentences do in an essay. The whole thing is held together by a theme - the equivalent of the clear position throughout called for in band descriptors.

Causes and Solutions: Trying to get a 7 when you could get an 8.

My degree happens to be in sociology with a comparative cultural emphasis. At uni, I studied the cultures of different regions and  countries and learned how their particular development as societies shaped their values and approaches to life.

When I read and analyze students' IELTS essays, I can’t help but notice how culture influences how a person answers questions. As much as the trinity of IDP/BC/Cambridge does what they can to create questions which are answerable by people from all over the world, they don’t always do as good a job as they might. For instance, in one of the official books, there is a question about gap-year students, meaning students who take a year off between high school and starting university to work and travel abroad. When I present this question to my students here in Myanmar, they look at me aghast. Because of the culture, economy and other aspects of growing up in a least-developed country, the idea of young people doing this is completely foreign. They have never heard of such a thing!

I think the role of museums in a society is similarly very culturally subjective and different from place to place. 

Watch the video for details

Think of Your IELTS Writing Task 2 as a Song

Are you familiar with a Venn Diagram? It shows how groups of particular characteristics overlap each other. When I made this video, I thought that the idea that Task 2 was like a song was the most brilliant thing I’d thought up in weeks. When in reality, I understand my target audience was more like this->

Think about it. An IELTS essay is made up of paragraphs, each of which should have a particular purpose and message; a song is constructed in verses which serve the same role. 

Bar Graph Over Time - Looking for Trends and Comparisons, not Just Highe...