This is quite a well-known saying and I have found again and again that it really does happen!
Perhaps some of you were struggling with IELTS and got to the stage where you really didn’t know how to get through the exam when you received an email from a teacher or school, or perhaps one of your friends recommended someone and suddenly everything changed and you found the support you needed to get your IELTS band.
It happens all the time. In our DIY (Do It Yourself) world you can learn everything you need to know practically on YouTube and you can seek and find a lot of help and support via social media but although this is all at your fingertips, it doesn’t always result in success. I find myself stuck often with technical things and I seek an answer on YouTube and follow the steps laid out and I still can’t manage to solve the problem. Then somebody says it’s very easy and they demonstrate and hey presto it’s solved. I’m sure you have had this experience too.
So what does this tell us?
I hope it tells us that teachers are still necessary!! Otherwise I will be in trouble ☹. But, more seriously I think it tells us that while we are all very engaged in the online world and can learn amazing things, it is still sometimes essential to have someone who is an expert at something to lead us through the process.
So, when it comes to IELTS especially, I think about writing and to an extent reading in particular, it may be sensible to seek the help of an expert. I was working with one of my students today. We have just started working together and she had completed only her third test with me and the results are good; she is already starting to score around Band 7 and if she continues to do this over the next few weeks then she should be able to reach her target. What is interesting about her study though, is that she told me after just 3 tests she was feeling far more confident about her reading. She has managed to reduce the time so that she is only a little over the test time and whereas she used to hate the reading and put off doing it she now finds that she can manage the questions far better and is beginning to enjoy her IELTS reading study and moreover, her scores are showing this! That is a huge breakthrough! After just three lessons.
I am sure, given her quite good level of English that she would have got to this point eventually, but it may have taken a long time. This is the BIG difference between going it alone and working with someone who knows exactly what you need to do to get to your destination – time. Working with an IELTS teacher can:
- Save you a lot of time
- Save you a lot of heartache too
- Give you confidence
- And maybe save you money (even though you’ll need to invest in your training) both through fewer tests and also loss of future income through being stuck
I’m not suggesting you choose me as your IELTS teacher – although it would be nice 😊 There are many out there and I am sure that there will be the perfect one for you.
But just think about it. If you are finding the whole process challenging, if you don’t feel as though you are making any progress, if you are putting off your IELTS practice because it is a big chore or engaging in any other ‘avoidance tactics’ then maybe it is the right time for your IELTS teacher to ‘appear!’
If you feel some of these problems as you read this then I’d love to speak to you. Let’s have a chat.
https://englishlanguagetraining.wufoo.com/forms/zeexrjk00ssc9d/
