What prompted me to write this article was a message from two people last week, asking me if I could just check their writing quickly and give them a band score. I explained that that is not how I work with students on their writing and they replied that it was fine, but they didn’t think it would take me long to do it. In actual fact it takes quite a long time to correct writing properly. Also, if I just correct a task quickly and give a band score, say band 6, how is that going to help? How are you going to move away from band 6? I'm not providing you with any tools to make that journey from 6 to 7 or from 7 to 8.
Just quickly looking and saying, this is band 6, which I am quite capable of doing because I used to be an IELTS examiner, doesn't really help you. Therefore, when you check your own writing, it is not enough just to look at it and think, yeah, that's fine - because chances are there will be things in that writing task that are going to pull your band down.
Let me tell you a little bit about my own correction process. When I correct writing for the students and I do this for students who are on any of my IELTS courses and also for the students in my IELTS Champions Club, the first thing I would do is to read through it quickly, because I want to know if I can get from the beginning to the end easily and fluently without having to stop. If I can then it tells me that the writing is quite fluent and readable.
Every time I have to stop; it tells me that there's a problem. So, the more I can get through without stopping, the higher the band looks as though it's going to be. If I read through quickly, I think, this is somewhere between 7 and 8 or if I stop a few times, it might be 6 and 7 and if I have to keep stopping then it may be somewhere between 5 and 6. It gives a kind of overview of where the task is going to lie.
After this I go through it more slowly, line by line, reading it aloud. That helps me to pinpoint exactly where a sentence is falling down or where there's a problem with a paragraph, and then I can look carefully to see what the problem is. I suggest you do that yourselves too.
Then the next thing I do is to look carefully at the vocabulary and at any grammar or punctuation. For the students I'm working with, I will write that on their script. I tend to use Microsoft Word where possible, because I can put a comment on the side and use the track changes, this allows me to give advice to the student also.
I look at the flow, which is the cohesion. How does one paragraph move into the next paragraph? Is that managed well? Also how does one sentence move into the next sentence? Are the relationships between the sentences managed well? Are the relationships between the paragraphs managed well? I also want to look at the breadth of the writing, how broad is the vocabulary? Are there lots of synonyms or is there a lot of repetition? How varied are the sentence structures? Is there variety, are there lots of complex structures?
Again, if you repeat the same sentence structure over and over, you're not going to get a high band. Finally, I want to think about whether this is a convincing argument for the question. Has the student answered the question well? Have they convinced me of their arguments and of their evidence? Do the examples that they've given really fit with the evidence and illustrate the points they are presenting? Have you done a good job, basically? Even though I might not agree with the ideas - it's quite possible the examiner doesn't agree with you - but are we persuaded? Can I see and accept your point of view?
Of course, the writing must cover the four band descriptors for that band in order to be awarded it. I know examiners don't have a great deal of time to spend on your writing when they are correcting, but they are very well trained in spotting things very quickly. When I'm working with students on their writing, obviously I'm going to take longer because I need to point out everything to that student so that they can improve and this takes time to do.
So, when somebody says to me, can you have a quick look at my writing - it won't take long, actually, it will take long. To do all the checking, to write it all down, to tell the students what they need to focus on and what they need to change. My students, want my advice and my expertise they pay me to help them improve. Once the process is finished, I will generally give them maybe just one or two main things to focus on for the next task because you can't change everything at once.
This is why developing your writing to Band 7, 7.5 or 8 cannot be done overnight. Focus on one or two things. Get them correct and then move on to another couple of things and gradually the writing will develop and get better and better.
This is the very best way to improve your writing. Work with somebody who knows what they're doing. An IELTS teacher would be the ideal person to do that for you because checking your writing by yourself is very, very difficult, if not impossible. When I'm writing a blog post or an article myself, I usually ask my husband to check it because I know there will be some small things in there, maybe typing errors or spelling slips. Also, sometimes what's in my head doesn't always come down onto the paper exactly as I'm thinking it and it may not always be as clear as I think it is.
The examiner cannot get inside your head. You have to make it very clear. If you can afford to pay anything for your IELTS preparation, get somebody to help you with writing. That's the one area that's really difficult to do alone. However, as you are doing your writing practice, there are some things you can do to help remove errors, prevent errors, and make the whole task better.
- Make a mental checklist of those mistakes that you make often (articles, singular/plural, agreement of subject and verb are common examples). There may also be words you tend to spell wrongly. Check these as you go or make them the first things you check at the end.
- As you write, be very conscious about how you are writing? What words are you using? What sentence structures are you using? Focus on how to express your ideas not what to write (this is why planning before you start writing is so important).
- Keep going back to the question, am I on track with this question? You'd be amazed at how many students do a really good introduction, start their first paragraph really well and then suddenly go off down another route and start answering a completely different question from the one on the exam paper. Sometimes students just jump on the topic and write everything they know about it these things are going to affect your band badly. Make sure that you're still answering the same question when you're finished.
- Read your work aloud because every time you stumble, there will usually be a problem. Stop and look at it and work out why it isn’t flowing properly. Then you can correct it. If you do this regularly then in the exam, you’ll be able to do it in your head and you should be able to eliminate any silly errors so that the examiner does not have to see them.
- My final point is, focus on the language more than the ideas as you actually write. If you've done a good plan, there's no need to change it. As you write, focus on how to express those ideas rather than what the ideas are and if you do that, there's no reason why you can't get a 7, 7.5 or 8 if your language is good enough.
Don't forget, this is a language exam, and you are being tested primarily on your language. It is all about how you interpret the question, how you come up with suitable ideas, and most importantly, how you express all that in excellent English.