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- The ONE change you can make to your IELTS writing to be sure of your high band
The ONE change you can make to your IELTS writing to be sure of your high band
If you have ever worked with me or come to a webinar you will know that my one mantra when it comes to IELTS writing is plan and plan and plan. I insist on it from my students and I encourage ALL IELTS students to really practice their planning seriously.
I often hear these comments from students:
- I haven’t got time to plan
- I write better straight from my head
- I don’t like to be restricted in my ideas
- I want to let the language come as I think about the ideas
- I like to get straight into the writing before I forget my ideas and vocabulary
- I don’t know how to plan effectively
The ONLY one of these reasons that I accept is the last one – the rest are utter tosh!!
- Planning actually saves you time
- Maybe in the confines of your bedroom or study but in an exam and with a second or foreign language I really doubt you can pull this off
- Ideas are the least important thing, put language first and you’re on the right track
- This is a recipe for disaster – you have to have good organisation it’s one of the descriptors and this strategy will not deliver well
- During the planning stage you will write down the ideas and can jot down vocabulary and phrases too so you won’t forget them (in fact with really good preparation before your exam you will know which phrases and vocabulary you are thinking of using.
- OK – now you are thinking!
Planning need not take more than 2 or 3 minutes but I have known students take 5 or even 10 minutes and still complete their tasks and get band 7!!
Follow these stages for an effective and helpful plan:
- Analyse the question –what do you have you do what type of question is it, what is the back ground topic – look at the key words
- Quickly brainstorm some ideas (spider diagrams work well here – something visual)
- Look at your ideas and see if you can group them (you will see the main idea plus other things you can use to support this idea emerge)
- Now organise the ideas into your 2 paragraphs – 2 main ideas plus supporting evidence plus an example (not more than one per paragraph)
- Write this in note form as an outline (don’t forget to sketch out your introduction and conclusion as well)
- Intro,
- Para1
- Para2
- Conclusion
- Now write down any vocabulary that you want to use and might forget
- Now start to ‘flesh out’ your plan into sentences and paragraphs – if you have prepared well you should now go onto ‘automatic pilot’
- Check grammar as you go along
- Finish and check your work for any errors
By using this process you will be able to use your time well thereby taking less time to write. As you are concentrating only on the language as you write (the ideas are all now in the plan so you needn’t think about them any more) you can focus on the best sentences to express the ideas, use good linkers, great vocabulary and check you don’t make mistakes as you go along. All my students who plan well have very few corrections t9o make at the end of their writing. Finally the whole writing process is much faster and more efficient so you won’t have any problems with timing.
All this adds up to you being firmly in control of your writing by knowing exactly what to do and what to say and all this adds up to a high band.
Finally to reach this stage in the exam takes practice so from now on plan, plan, plan and when you get to the exam you will actually enjoy creating your tasks for the examiner!
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