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12 years of IELTS experience in 20 minutes
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Mar 10, 2025
12 years of IELTS experience in 20 minutes
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0:00
hello there I students welcome to I
0:03
podcast you no longer have to worry
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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
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tutoring experience in 20 minutes hello
0:36
there my name is Ben Worthington and in
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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
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I I I see this every day with students
1:25
now quick fix for this is getting into
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the habit of like going to BBC every
1:33
morning reading just the headlines to
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start off with you can start
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small I think it is the book Atomic
1:42
habits where he's talking about look if
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you want to start going to the gym and
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getting fit first establish the Habit
1:51
just drive to the gym you don't even
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have to get out and go in there but
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drive to the gym every Tuesday or every
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morning and and then after a week when
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you're feeling it go to the gym get
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check uh walk up to the door and come
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back and just start building up the
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Habit so in this case uh you just start
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by opening up bbc.co.uk or bbc.com read
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the headlines that's it then the next
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day go click on an article read it the
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next day click on two articles and just
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slowly start building it up and getting
2:26
into the habit but you want to be
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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
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that and another pretty practical way is
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listen to those ielt vocabulary topics
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the the tutorials that I've been
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publishing about renewable energy about
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youth crime about all these weird and
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wonderful topics because then you're
2:57
going to learn about that topic but with
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a Focus for ielt so it's a little bit
3:02
more specialized but listening to those
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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
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activity this is what we encourage
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students to do on our course we send
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them about
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16 ielt writing task to questions
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usually recent questions and we tell
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them okay come up with ideas for each of
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those come up with positions you're
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going to write
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about and it's not just about coming up
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with ideas it's it's reading the
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question and generating your position
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usually two positions for each body
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paragraph and then from those positions
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you get your ideas and what we do is we
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send 16 questions out to the
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students they reply with their ideas we
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look at them okay good now you know how
3:55
to generate your positions and your
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ideas now you can drop those into a
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framework which we give you on uh our
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course next one no vocabulary my
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vocabulary is poor I get this every
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single day from in an email from
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students um a solution for this we
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recently did a tutorial about how to
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expand your vocabulary using pref
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prefixes and suffixes and what and all
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the rest of it and that's just a quick
4:27
way also just learning the formulas of
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how how to transform it into a verb how
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to transform it into an adverb and this
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will quickly expand your
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vocabulary another way would be to read
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that I'm not one of those tutors who's
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going to say oh the way to get a b seven
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is practice practice practice I just I
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want to smash my head against a wall
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when I hear tutor saying that um
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however however reading and actively
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reading is is definitely um necessary
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getting to the Habit reading actively
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reading circular uh Circ put in a circle
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circling sorry circling certain words
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underlining them getting the definition
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extracting the whole sentence putting it
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into your vocabulary book you can do
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this while you're um reading articles
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from the BBC or from CNBC or
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whatever now while you're doing this
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okay let me just zoom out we started off
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very specific let's just zoom out a bit
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let's talk about your study
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environment now are you studying with
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the radio on in the kitchen while
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everybody's cooking or your kids coming
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up to you there's people coming in out
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your roommates or are you in the library
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with your headphones on and completely
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focused because it makes a huge
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difference I mean personally I cannot
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study with music that has got lyrics in
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my mind just starts following those
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lyrics I get distracted and I recently
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sent an8 hour YouTube video and to a
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student they told me they were work they
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were preparing for I while listening to
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the some music and I was like no no no
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no
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no I mean it's all of this needs to be
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tested though okay maybe you can if you
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can good for you personally I can't so I
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listen to the sound of bra my wife
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thinks it's because I'm British maybe it
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is but it's just that white noise in the
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background gets me into the Zone gets me
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focusing you can even go to YouTube and
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look for that high focus music and stuff
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problem with that is that sometimes
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there's adverts in there and you're
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getting back to those
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distractions so think about your
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environment how are you working what
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um and then the second thing is uh not
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the second thing yeah it is a second
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thing related to your I oparation is
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that and I recently learned this a lot
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of students okay will sit down to
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prepare for
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IELTS and so one technique that I share
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with my students is just to copy out
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IELTS task 2 essays pen and paper just
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copy it out get a feel for it it's
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boring it's boring as heck um but it's
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necessary you know especially if you
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haven't got a tutor you just write out
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the essay you look at the sentence and
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you write it out next step is to look
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cover write you look at a sentence you
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cover it up and then you write it
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out and this is the boring stuff this is
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what you need to do I'm not going to BS
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you okay um but what a lot of students
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will do is they'll be like oh I need to
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prepare for I Els sit down got no idea
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what I'm doing let's go to YouTube and
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then they'll overload themselves with
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different tutorial
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and they listen to T to X then T to Y
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and then T to zed and just get more
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confused in the process because every
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Tut has got their own way of doing it
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they'll get more confused and then
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really it's sort of like this is hash
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and I do the same this is why I totally
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sympathize with you I do this with
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projects I'm like I'm going to do this
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big project it get I get stuck into it
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it gets tough and then I get distracted
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and I go and do something that's slight
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easier and the same happens I've seen it
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with students sit down to for El start
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watching YouTube videos because is
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easier and you still feel like you're
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working you still feel like you're
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preparing you're watching all these
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tutorials but really if you're honest
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with yourself that's not really the most
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effective way most uh the most effective
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way is literally just writing getting
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feedback or as I just mentioned look
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cover right right um and then put that
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essay through an AI essay Checker like
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we've got at IELTS podcast but the point
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I'm saying is that the progress will be
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coming from like the boring Common Sense
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tasks that you need that you um need to
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employ in order to move
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forwards um I recently discovered a
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phrase it's like in English we have this
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phrase called the Silver Bullet you know
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everyone's looking for this Silver
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Bullet that will be the solution
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for
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everything when really what we need are
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just lead bullets the boring lead
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bullets and eventually by firing all
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these lead bullets we're going to
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discover the Silver Bullet we're going
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to discover the strategy the system that
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works for us the tutor that works for
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us but you won't get there you won't
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find that silver bullet you won't find
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the one that works for you unless you're
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doing the boring stuff which is like
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writing out essays getting feedback
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looking up descript uh looking up
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definitions learning how to expand your
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vocabulary all of this so it's boring
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advice and I do apologize but this is
10:14
you know I else um if it was fun
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everybody would do it and then you know
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if everyone's got it it's like a degree
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in modern society if everyone's got a
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degree then its value diminishes um and
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ISS is tough and you need tough
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preparation and it's not
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fun right I've finished my little rant
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on that the next um piece of advice
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would
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be if you're in a situation and you
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cannot afford a tutor you're a
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self-study student uh self-study
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student then there has honestly never
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been a better time for you when I
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started the only way that you could
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improve uh with your writing or with
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your speaking was with a tutor to either
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review your essay to go over the essay
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with you like oneon-one next to you or
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somebody who's extremely proficient in
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English but usually those people are
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quite difficult to
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find however fast forward to today and
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we've got this insane opportunity with
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technology you can even just copy paste
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your essay into a Google doc and it'll
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give you feedback if you want more
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detailed feedback you can use specialist
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software we've got it on our site it's
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completely free and it reviews your
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essay looks for those grammar errors
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helps you with your vocabulary and if
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you upgrade to the premium you get even
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more detailed feedback enabling you to
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move
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faster the second point is for the
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speaking again back when I started the
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only way you could improve was literally
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speaking to somebody and for a lot of
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self-study students they either had a
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friend who was pretty proficient or they
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had a non native English teacher because
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they're cheaper or the the it was the
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only tutor that they had in the town or
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in the city or they um they had if they
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were lucky a native English tutor but
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even then the chances that that tutor
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were uh qualified to uh and had the
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experience and had the knowledge to help
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the student progress then and we not
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even just talking about like academic
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writing skills there's so much more with
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teaching you know a good two motivate
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you will inspire you will send you
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homework will bombard you with homework
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will guilt you into studying every
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single morning one piece of advice I
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gave to one student recently was like
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look if you're listening to music every
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day for your commute that's all right
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but is it really going to move the
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needle no and she's like yeah but just
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listening to English podcasts like yours
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Ben no she didn't say that it's boring
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she didn't say that but she said like um
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I listening to this like academic
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sources and news and stuff like that is
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boring and it's depressing and I like no
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worries I get it listen to something
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that's quite addictive like an audio
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book a story book where you're kind of
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like okay I'm at work now I've got to
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press pause but when work finishes I
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can't wait to jump back into this audio
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book be it Harry Potter Lord of the
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Rings whatever floats your boat whatever
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interests you and then the other tip I
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was going to share regarding like
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there's never been a better time is
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there's AI tools out there that you can
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speak to and you can have conversations
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with we're releasing one soon I know
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I've been saying this for quite a few
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months but it is coming in the in the
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meantime though uh my friend Fabian he's
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got a great little web app called Gish
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gish.com and you can chat there you can
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uh you can use it for
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free uh I don't think it gives you
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feedback but it just helps you
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especially build your uh conversational
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abilities uh which helps with fluencies
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so that's gish.com
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now a recent student said to me um it
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was just yesterday actually she said wow
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we were going through task two together
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and she said it's never been so simple
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before it's always been overly
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complicated and the point that I want to
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make is
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that a lot of students will say oh I Els
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is easy but the real truth is it is a
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challenge especially if you come from a
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different academic system which uses
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which relies on sort of like
14:33
memorization and regurgitation and now
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you come to IELTS and you've got to
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start like critically thinking and
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you've got to get opinions and ideas and
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things like this well a good tutor I
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mean this is what I
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do I know I'm blowing my own trumpet so
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to speak but a good tutor the the best
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way to approach this and any problem is
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just to break it down into small
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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
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this is what you need to do you need to
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figure out where your weak spots are and
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then you do this by breaking it down so
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when you're writing an essay which part
15:20
is giving you the most pain when you're
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doing an I uh writing test which part is
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making you this uh sorry a listening
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test or a reading test
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in which sections are you losing
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points and then what another technique
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is you can uh I mean I'm giving you lots
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of techniques here
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okay the probably the most important
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thing which I should have said right at
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the beginning or right at the end
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is this advice works for the majority of
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the students okay but not everything
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works for every single student you need
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to work out what how your brain fun
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you need to work out what your weak
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points are and then just work on those
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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
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you need to work on your grammar skills
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so what I'm saying is that you need to
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make your own plan and you need to
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figure out your own week spots and then
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work on those specifically and then even
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your own techniques like some students
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what they like to do is get a listening
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test sit sit down with it for a few
16:29
hours get the transcript reverse
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engineer figure out how the questions
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are formed other students like to skip
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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
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to skim the Reading part first then look
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at the questions then go back in further
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detail and so on and so forth there's
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lots of different techniques out there
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and you need to find the one that works
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for
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you so just keep that in mind
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okay if if one of the techniques I give
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you doesn't work for you you're not an
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idiot and I'm not a fraud you just need
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to figure out another technique that
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works for you try another one and just
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keep going and it is tough it is tough
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and you do need some perseverance and
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some persistence and almost like an
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obsession and this is why I used to say
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I hate I because it kind of gets
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students into such a frustrating like
17:26
Loop and it's like oh how do I pass how
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do I pass and then a lot of students
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might just focus on paragraph um five
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five body five paragraph essay model
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instead of the four paragraph ESS model
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when really they need to be focusing on
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the language skills but I has become
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such a big part of their life they're
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completely focused on
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on um finding the right essay structure
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when really it's just about learning the
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English uh language in a better DET in
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better detail to a higher level and then
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the essay structures start becoming a
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little bit easier so so another piece of
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advice figure out what what's costing
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you points is it the language skills you
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know is it grammar structures is it
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sentence structures is it the exam
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skills is it time management is it essay
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structure and
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then get organized make a list of these
18:17
and then just tackle each one so for
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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
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redundant tutors you'll be able to save
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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
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26:04
thanks for listening to ieltspodcast.com
26:07
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