Up next in 10
12 years of IELTS experience in 20 minutes
432 views
Mar 10, 2025
12 years of IELTS experience in 20 minutes
View Video Transcript
0:00
hello there I students welcome to I
0:03
podcast you no longer have to worry
0:06
threat or Panic about IELTS because we
0:09
are here to guide you through this test
0:12
jungle enjoy these IELTS tutorials and
0:16
if you need more help want to access the
0:18
finless online course you can visit us
0:21
at ieltspodcast.com
0:26
12 years of IELTS
0:30
tutoring experience in 20 minutes hello
0:36
there my name is Ben Worthington and in
0:38
this tutorial I'm going to give you like
0:41
what I find every day when I'm looking
0:44
at essays correcting essays when I'm
0:47
working with my private
0:48
students and it's sort of like a list of
0:54
quick uh quick I hate the word tips tips
0:58
and tricks I hate the word said it's
1:00
like a whole list of practical ideas you
1:05
need to adopt in order to accelerate
1:08
your exper um your knowledge your
1:10
education and get past that
1:13
6.5 so
1:16
first mind my mind goes blank oh my word
1:20
I I I see this every day with students
1:25
now quick fix for this is getting into
1:30
the habit of like going to BBC every
1:33
morning reading just the headlines to
1:36
start off with you can start
1:38
small I think it is the book Atomic
1:42
habits where he's talking about look if
1:45
you want to start going to the gym and
1:47
getting fit first establish the Habit
1:51
just drive to the gym you don't even
1:52
have to get out and go in there but
1:55
drive to the gym every Tuesday or every
1:58
morning and and then after a week when
2:01
you're feeling it go to the gym get
2:04
check uh walk up to the door and come
2:07
back and just start building up the
2:09
Habit so in this case uh you just start
2:12
by opening up bbc.co.uk or bbc.com read
2:16
the headlines that's it then the next
2:18
day go click on an article read it the
2:22
next day click on two articles and just
2:24
slowly start building it up and getting
2:26
into the habit but you want to be
2:28
filling your brain with ideas related to
2:32
the I El's topics be it climate change
2:36
youth crime Renewables energy all of
2:39
that and another pretty practical way is
2:43
listen to those ielt vocabulary topics
2:46
the the tutorials that I've been
2:48
publishing about renewable energy about
2:51
youth crime about all these weird and
2:54
wonderful topics because then you're
2:57
going to learn about that topic but with
2:59
a Focus for ielt so it's a little bit
3:02
more specialized but listening to those
3:05
tutorials isn't going to solve the issue
3:07
you need to be listening and taking
3:09
notes just writing down and another
3:12
activity this is what we encourage
3:14
students to do on our course we send
3:16
them about
3:18
16 ielt writing task to questions
3:22
usually recent questions and we tell
3:25
them okay come up with ideas for each of
3:28
those come up with positions you're
3:30
going to write
3:31
about and it's not just about coming up
3:35
with ideas it's it's reading the
3:37
question and generating your position
3:39
usually two positions for each body
3:42
paragraph and then from those positions
3:45
you get your ideas and what we do is we
3:48
send 16 questions out to the
3:51
students they reply with their ideas we
3:53
look at them okay good now you know how
3:55
to generate your positions and your
3:57
ideas now you can drop those into a
3:59
framework which we give you on uh our
4:02
course next one no vocabulary my
4:05
vocabulary is poor I get this every
4:09
single day from in an email from
4:13
students um a solution for this we
4:15
recently did a tutorial about how to
4:18
expand your vocabulary using pref
4:22
prefixes and suffixes and what and all
4:24
the rest of it and that's just a quick
4:27
way also just learning the formulas of
4:29
how how to transform it into a verb how
4:31
to transform it into an adverb and this
4:34
will quickly expand your
4:38
vocabulary another way would be to read
4:42
that I'm not one of those tutors who's
4:43
going to say oh the way to get a b seven
4:45
is practice practice practice I just I
4:48
want to smash my head against a wall
4:49
when I hear tutor saying that um
4:54
however however reading and actively
4:58
reading is is definitely um necessary
5:02
getting to the Habit reading actively
5:05
reading circular uh Circ put in a circle
5:08
circling sorry circling certain words
5:11
underlining them getting the definition
5:14
extracting the whole sentence putting it
5:16
into your vocabulary book you can do
5:19
this while you're um reading articles
5:22
from the BBC or from CNBC or
5:26
whatever now while you're doing this
5:30
okay let me just zoom out we started off
5:32
very specific let's just zoom out a bit
5:36
let's talk about your study
5:39
environment now are you studying with
5:42
the radio on in the kitchen while
5:45
everybody's cooking or your kids coming
5:47
up to you there's people coming in out
5:48
your roommates or are you in the library
5:51
with your headphones on and completely
5:54
focused because it makes a huge
5:57
difference I mean personally I cannot
6:00
study with music that has got lyrics in
6:04
my mind just starts following those
6:05
lyrics I get distracted and I recently
6:08
sent an8 hour YouTube video and to a
6:12
student they told me they were work they
6:14
were preparing for I while listening to
6:16
the some music and I was like no no no
6:19
no
6:20
no I mean it's all of this needs to be
6:23
tested though okay maybe you can if you
6:26
can good for you personally I can't so I
6:28
listen to the sound of bra my wife
6:30
thinks it's because I'm British maybe it
6:33
is but it's just that white noise in the
6:35
background gets me into the Zone gets me
6:38
focusing you can even go to YouTube and
6:40
look for that high focus music and stuff
6:42
problem with that is that sometimes
6:43
there's adverts in there and you're
6:46
getting back to those
6:47
distractions so think about your
6:49
environment how are you working what
6:53
um and then the second thing is uh not
6:56
the second thing yeah it is a second
6:58
thing related to your I oparation is
7:00
that and I recently learned this a lot
7:04
of students okay will sit down to
7:07
prepare for
7:09
IELTS and so one technique that I share
7:13
with my students is just to copy out
7:15
IELTS task 2 essays pen and paper just
7:18
copy it out get a feel for it it's
7:21
boring it's boring as heck um but it's
7:26
necessary you know especially if you
7:28
haven't got a tutor you just write out
7:30
the essay you look at the sentence and
7:32
you write it out next step is to look
7:35
cover write you look at a sentence you
7:37
cover it up and then you write it
7:40
out and this is the boring stuff this is
7:43
what you need to do I'm not going to BS
7:45
you okay um but what a lot of students
7:48
will do is they'll be like oh I need to
7:50
prepare for I Els sit down got no idea
7:52
what I'm doing let's go to YouTube and
7:55
then they'll overload themselves with
7:58
different tutorial
8:00
and they listen to T to X then T to Y
8:02
and then T to zed and just get more
8:04
confused in the process because every
8:07
Tut has got their own way of doing it
8:10
they'll get more confused and then
8:13
really it's sort of like this is hash
8:16
and I do the same this is why I totally
8:19
sympathize with you I do this with
8:21
projects I'm like I'm going to do this
8:22
big project it get I get stuck into it
8:25
it gets tough and then I get distracted
8:28
and I go and do something that's slight
8:30
easier and the same happens I've seen it
8:32
with students sit down to for El start
8:35
watching YouTube videos because is
8:37
easier and you still feel like you're
8:41
working you still feel like you're
8:42
preparing you're watching all these
8:44
tutorials but really if you're honest
8:47
with yourself that's not really the most
8:49
effective way most uh the most effective
8:52
way is literally just writing getting
8:55
feedback or as I just mentioned look
8:58
cover right right um and then put that
9:01
essay through an AI essay Checker like
9:03
we've got at IELTS podcast but the point
9:06
I'm saying is that the progress will be
9:08
coming from like the boring Common Sense
9:12
tasks that you need that you um need to
9:16
employ in order to move
9:18
forwards um I recently discovered a
9:21
phrase it's like in English we have this
9:24
phrase called the Silver Bullet you know
9:26
everyone's looking for this Silver
9:28
Bullet that will be the solution
9:30
for
9:32
everything when really what we need are
9:35
just lead bullets the boring lead
9:37
bullets and eventually by firing all
9:40
these lead bullets we're going to
9:41
discover the Silver Bullet we're going
9:43
to discover the strategy the system that
9:46
works for us the tutor that works for
9:49
us but you won't get there you won't
9:52
find that silver bullet you won't find
9:54
the one that works for you unless you're
9:56
doing the boring stuff which is like
9:58
writing out essays getting feedback
10:02
looking up descript uh looking up
10:03
definitions learning how to expand your
10:06
vocabulary all of this so it's boring
10:11
advice and I do apologize but this is
10:14
you know I else um if it was fun
10:18
everybody would do it and then you know
10:20
if everyone's got it it's like a degree
10:22
in modern society if everyone's got a
10:24
degree then its value diminishes um and
10:27
ISS is tough and you need tough
10:29
preparation and it's not
10:32
fun right I've finished my little rant
10:36
on that the next um piece of advice
10:39
would
10:40
be if you're in a situation and you
10:43
cannot afford a tutor you're a
10:44
self-study student uh self-study
10:48
student then there has honestly never
10:52
been a better time for you when I
10:55
started the only way that you could
10:56
improve uh with your writing or with
10:59
your speaking was with a tutor to either
11:01
review your essay to go over the essay
11:04
with you like oneon-one next to you or
11:06
somebody who's extremely proficient in
11:08
English but usually those people are
11:10
quite difficult to
11:12
find however fast forward to today and
11:16
we've got this insane opportunity with
11:18
technology you can even just copy paste
11:20
your essay into a Google doc and it'll
11:22
give you feedback if you want more
11:24
detailed feedback you can use specialist
11:26
software we've got it on our site it's
11:28
completely free and it reviews your
11:30
essay looks for those grammar errors
11:32
helps you with your vocabulary and if
11:35
you upgrade to the premium you get even
11:37
more detailed feedback enabling you to
11:39
move
11:41
faster the second point is for the
11:44
speaking again back when I started the
11:47
only way you could improve was literally
11:50
speaking to somebody and for a lot of
11:52
self-study students they either had a
11:55
friend who was pretty proficient or they
11:57
had a non native English teacher because
12:00
they're cheaper or the the it was the
12:03
only tutor that they had in the town or
12:05
in the city or they um they had if they
12:09
were lucky a native English tutor but
12:11
even then the chances that that tutor
12:14
were uh qualified to uh and had the
12:18
experience and had the knowledge to help
12:20
the student progress then and we not
12:23
even just talking about like academic
12:25
writing skills there's so much more with
12:27
teaching you know a good two motivate
12:29
you will inspire you will send you
12:32
homework will bombard you with homework
12:34
will guilt you into studying every
12:37
single morning one piece of advice I
12:39
gave to one student recently was like
12:41
look if you're listening to music every
12:43
day for your commute that's all right
12:45
but is it really going to move the
12:46
needle no and she's like yeah but just
12:49
listening to English podcasts like yours
12:51
Ben no she didn't say that it's boring
12:54
she didn't say that but she said like um
12:57
I listening to this like academic
12:59
sources and news and stuff like that is
13:01
boring and it's depressing and I like no
13:02
worries I get it listen to something
13:04
that's quite addictive like an audio
13:07
book a story book where you're kind of
13:09
like okay I'm at work now I've got to
13:11
press pause but when work finishes I
13:13
can't wait to jump back into this audio
13:15
book be it Harry Potter Lord of the
13:18
Rings whatever floats your boat whatever
13:20
interests you and then the other tip I
13:23
was going to share regarding like
13:25
there's never been a better time is
13:28
there's AI tools out there that you can
13:30
speak to and you can have conversations
13:32
with we're releasing one soon I know
13:35
I've been saying this for quite a few
13:37
months but it is coming in the in the
13:39
meantime though uh my friend Fabian he's
13:42
got a great little web app called Gish
13:45
gish.com and you can chat there you can
13:49
uh you can use it for
13:50
free uh I don't think it gives you
13:52
feedback but it just helps you
13:54
especially build your uh conversational
13:57
abilities uh which helps with fluencies
13:59
so that's gish.com
14:05
now a recent student said to me um it
14:08
was just yesterday actually she said wow
14:11
we were going through task two together
14:12
and she said it's never been so simple
14:15
before it's always been overly
14:18
complicated and the point that I want to
14:20
make is
14:21
that a lot of students will say oh I Els
14:24
is easy but the real truth is it is a
14:26
challenge especially if you come from a
14:28
different academic system which uses
14:31
which relies on sort of like
14:33
memorization and regurgitation and now
14:36
you come to IELTS and you've got to
14:38
start like critically thinking and
14:40
you've got to get opinions and ideas and
14:43
things like this well a good tutor I
14:47
mean this is what I
14:48
do I know I'm blowing my own trumpet so
14:51
to speak but a good tutor the the best
14:54
way to approach this and any problem is
14:57
just to break it down into small
14:58
component components Master each tiny
15:01
component and then move on to the next
15:05
step and this is exactly what we've been
15:08
doing recently we break it down and and
15:11
this is what you need to do you need to
15:12
figure out where your weak spots are and
15:15
then you do this by breaking it down so
15:18
when you're writing an essay which part
15:20
is giving you the most pain when you're
15:22
doing an I uh writing test which part is
15:25
making you this uh sorry a listening
15:27
test or a reading test
15:29
in which sections are you losing
15:32
points and then what another technique
15:35
is you can uh I mean I'm giving you lots
15:37
of techniques here
15:39
okay the probably the most important
15:42
thing which I should have said right at
15:43
the beginning or right at the end
15:46
is this advice works for the majority of
15:50
the students okay but not everything
15:53
works for every single student you need
15:56
to work out what how your brain fun
15:59
you need to work out what your weak
16:01
points are and then just work on those
16:03
you know if you've got amazing
16:04
vocabulary there's no point going out
16:07
and uh reading every single day maybe
16:10
you need to work on your grammar skills
16:12
so what I'm saying is that you need to
16:15
make your own plan and you need to
16:17
figure out your own week spots and then
16:20
work on those specifically and then even
16:23
your own techniques like some students
16:26
what they like to do is get a listening
16:28
test sit sit down with it for a few
16:29
hours get the transcript reverse
16:32
engineer figure out how the questions
16:34
are formed other students like to skip
16:37
straight to the answers have a brief
16:38
read of the answers then go to the
16:40
questions and other students just like
16:42
to skim the Reading part first then look
16:44
at the questions then go back in further
16:46
detail and so on and so forth there's
16:48
lots of different techniques out there
16:51
and you need to find the one that works
16:53
for
16:54
you so just keep that in mind
16:59
okay if if one of the techniques I give
17:01
you doesn't work for you you're not an
17:03
idiot and I'm not a fraud you just need
17:06
to figure out another technique that
17:08
works for you try another one and just
17:10
keep going and it is tough it is tough
17:13
and you do need some perseverance and
17:15
some persistence and almost like an
17:18
obsession and this is why I used to say
17:21
I hate I because it kind of gets
17:24
students into such a frustrating like
17:26
Loop and it's like oh how do I pass how
17:28
do I pass and then a lot of students
17:30
might just focus on paragraph um five
17:33
five body five paragraph essay model
17:35
instead of the four paragraph ESS model
17:37
when really they need to be focusing on
17:39
the language skills but I has become
17:40
such a big part of their life they're
17:42
completely focused on
17:44
on um finding the right essay structure
17:47
when really it's just about learning the
17:50
English uh language in a better DET in
17:53
better detail to a higher level and then
17:55
the essay structures start becoming a
17:57
little bit easier so so another piece of
18:00
advice figure out what what's costing
18:02
you points is it the language skills you
18:05
know is it grammar structures is it
18:07
sentence structures is it the exam
18:08
skills is it time management is it essay
18:12
structure and
18:14
then get organized make a list of these
18:17
and then just tackle each one so for
18:20
Tuesday you've assigned sentence
18:22
structure and you're going online and
18:23
you're going to practice your sentence
18:25
structure maybe it's just with a Google
18:27
doc maybe with some sophisticated tool
18:29
like our AI essay Checker you need to
18:32
find out what works for you and then
18:35
keep on doing that once you've tackled
18:37
that weak spot you move on to the next
18:40
it's not amazingly fun but this is what
18:44
you know this is what's needed I'm not
18:45
going to BS you next
18:49
one again this essay this tutorial is a
18:52
little bit over this all over the place
18:54
so we're going back to writing
18:56
essays and you know some students as I
19:00
said they suffer from my mind goes blank
19:02
other students suffer from like an
19:04
explosion of
19:06
ideas and this one is tough and what
19:09
I've noticed is that a student who
19:11
suffers from an explosion of ideas will
19:14
probably speak in a slightly incoherent
19:17
way as well because this this is how
19:19
their brain is wired this is how their
19:20
brain thinks it's like oh at this point
19:22
this point this point you know not
19:25
everybody can deliver sort of like a
19:27
coherent
19:29
um sentence a coherent even like a
19:32
coherent group of sentences and that's
19:34
not even how we speak we don't even
19:36
speak in
19:38
sentences so again you need to figure
19:41
out what kind of like learner you are
19:44
how your brain is wired and then if you
19:46
are one of these students that does
19:47
suffer from an explosion of ideas like
19:50
the current student I have now what I've
19:52
recommended to her seems a little bit
19:54
wacky but I know how to solve this
19:57
because I've had this exact same problem
19:59
when I was at University I found it so
20:02
difficult and what helped with for me
20:04
was working on my breathing working on
20:06
my meditation and kind of
20:10
ironically working um putting my
20:12
thoughts down on paper and then
20:14
organizing them instead of just going
20:16
straight into
20:18
writing and what I do find is that once
20:21
you become a proficient writer this
20:26
overspills this spills into your spoken
20:30
communication and this is where we start
20:33
getting traction because we start
20:35
gaining skills that are insanely
20:37
valuable in other areas of our life so
20:40
once I became a better writer in English
20:44
I almost immediately became a better
20:47
speaker you know I wasn't asking
20:49
redundant questions I wasn't using words
20:52
incorrectly and it just makes you it
20:55
just makes life so much easier when you
20:57
can communicate
21:00
clearly another point if you're like I
21:03
was saying before if you're a student
21:06
who's overly accurate when they speak
21:09
then you've probably got too much uh
21:11
sorry you're probably not that fluent
21:14
I've worked with a ton of Chinese
21:16
students who suffer from this exact
21:18
problem they're so worried about making
21:21
a mistake and it really holds back the
21:23
fluency because they're move they're
21:25
going back a few words correcting it
21:27
self correcting it and it's not flowing
21:29
and it's very difficult to understand
21:31
even though it could be very correct
21:34
grammar so in this example uh for this
21:38
what we work on is uh listening to songs
21:41
obviously songs are very very flowing
21:44
helps with fluency obviously but another
21:46
way is to get some set
21:50
phrases okay get some set phrases um
21:53
such as well I've never really thought
21:56
about that before um to be honest I
21:58
don't really know the answer to this but
22:00
I guess we could say just set phrases
22:03
like this and what you will find is that
22:06
the more you use these phrases you can
22:08
make them your own so you you learn you
22:12
get these set phrases you start using
22:15
them when you're speaking maybe with
22:17
Gish as I just mentioned
22:19
before and then once you get more
22:21
comfortable with them start
22:24
experimenting so the previous phrase I
22:27
gave to be honest I've never thought
22:28
about that
22:30
before you could start modifying it by
22:32
saying honestly I've never really
22:34
thought about that before and just start
22:36
making mod simple small modifications so
22:39
there's a lower chance of making a
22:42
mistake and we can do this with the
22:43
writing as well this essay will use
22:46
examples from XY Z and XY Z to
22:48
demonstrate points and prove arguments
22:51
and then in the next essay you write
22:53
you'll say um this essay will look at
22:56
these issues in serious detail
22:59
using arguments from a c and XY Z to
23:03
demonstrate points
23:06
and make irrefutable Point uh
23:10
arguments um as to why this is
23:12
beneficial for example but we just get
23:14
the basics first and then we can start
23:16
elaborating on
23:18
them and just to wrap this up because
23:21
we're running out of time I think the
23:23
biggest takeaway we can get from this
23:26
tutorial is getting organized
23:29
figuring out what we need to work on and
23:32
figuring out how to solve this issue and
23:34
when I say getting organized we've got a
23:36
list of Errors we've got a list of tasks
23:39
we're going to do in order to solve
23:40
those errors and we do them and we're
23:43
not messing around listening to stupid
23:46
tutors who are confusing Us on YouTube
23:49
we're not messing around um doing stuff
23:52
that feels good we want to be doing
23:54
really honestly the boring stuff um
23:58
getting organized setting it up a
24:00
schedule setting up a routine and
24:02
working towards and breaking problems
24:05
down into the smallest components
24:07
mastering it and then moving on to the
24:09
next one and a friend recently told me
24:12
how he works he's like yeah I've got a
24:14
list of tasks I want to do that week and
24:16
I sign them to the calendar and I do
24:17
this every single month it's like that's
24:19
a genius idea you know so you could say
24:22
on Wednesday I'm going to be working on
24:24
past
24:25
participles um I'll find a tutorial and
24:28
then going to write out sentences and so
24:30
on and so forth and plan it assign it to
24:32
Wednesday and then Wednesday comes
24:35
you've got you know exactly what you're
24:36
going to do so anyway that's it for me
24:39
today I'm wishing you a really
24:41
successful exam you can do this you can
24:45
do this you've learned your own language
24:47
you're probably already proficient in
24:48
English if you can understand me it's
24:51
just a case of making those extra steps
24:53
now getting organized moving forward um
24:57
and taking action so all the best oh
25:00
just one last thing this tutorial
25:02
completely free I don't ask you for any
25:05
money for this the only thing that I'm
25:07
asking is that if you find it useful
25:10
please post it on Facebook post it on
25:12
your social media share it with a friend
25:15
and I'd be extremely
25:16
grateful and also as I said every as I
25:19
say every single tutorial go to
25:22
ieltspodcast.com you can sign up there
25:24
you can get more tutorials about how to
25:26
pass the exam fast you can can get
25:28
tutorials about how to use our a essay
25:31
Checker and you'll be able to H and
25:33
you'll get notified as well when we're
25:34
going to be launching the speaking uh
25:37
web app that's going to put an end to
25:39
redundant tutors you'll be able to save
25:42
a ton of money and we'll get more
25:44
students passing is so have a beautiful
25:46
day thank you very much and good luck
25:47
with your next is exam
25:55
[Music]
26:04
thanks for listening to ieltspodcast.com
26:07
[Music]
#Private Tutoring Services
#Training & Certification
#Writers Resources