Are you getting great scores in your listening and your reading, but finding that the writing and perhaps also the speaking is lagging behind?
If this describes you then read on - this will help you transform your situation
How you can make sure that your IELTS writing reaches a high band?
That’s the question. I've been an IELTS teacher for a very long time, over 25 years and for most of that time I have worked exclusively with students who need a minimum of 7 in each part of their exam. More and more, nowadays, I am working with students who need Band 8 in most parts and particularly in writing. This, as you can imagine, is not a very easy thing to achieve.
What tends to happen with IELTS students is they focus a lot on reading and listening because it's more accessible and scores can improve, with practice, relatively quickly, to reach 7 and 8 and sometimes even 9. One of my students that took the exam a few weeks ago got nine in reading and he's not the only one. However, by ignoring the writing - and I know a lot of students who do this - it means there's a gap between your listening and reading and your writing (and sometimes the speaking too).
There are many reasons for this. One is that writing is something we all learn to do much later than speaking, listening and reading. It's also something that needs to develop. For example, a child who is six or seven learning to write will produce something very different from a 13- or 14-year-old teenager. This will also differ significantly from someone who is leaving school at 18 or somebody who is studying at university. Finally, somebody who is in a professional role will again have very different writing ability and experience.
During all those years the writing needs to develop to become more sophisticated and better suited to the kind of writing that is required. University writing needs to be academic. Professional writing needs to be more practical perhaps and have a different set of vocabulary. Therefore, each time you move into one of these new areas writing skills have to keep developing.
Remember, this is all in your own native language. When you translate this into a second language or a foreign language, it may be your third, fourth or fifth language, then obviously that's going to take time because you need to get everything up to speed. This means that if you are looking to do a master's degree your writing needs to be as good as the other students on that master's degree course who are perhaps native speakers. Or, if you want to go and live and work in an English-speaking country, then your writing needs to be as good as your colleagues.
It’s really important to understand therefore, that if you're looking for a Band 7 and even more so for an 8, you must face up to the fact that your writing needs to be superb and you shouldn't be handing something to the examiner that doesn't match their expectations for the band you desire. To achieve this level, you need to develop your skills. This takes time. So, if you've been focusing up to now on listening and reading, it's high time to turn to the writing to give yourself enough time to develop it. My advice to anybody studying for the IELTS exam is do not leave the writing until the end. Start developing your writing alongside all of the other skills, because all of these skills work together - reading will help writing, writing helps reading, speaking helps listening, listening help speaking, etc. It’s so important to have all the balls in the air at the same time.
A few years ago, one of my students said, writing was the last IELTS hurdle. I think there's a lot of truth in that, because writing is probably the last thing that will develop to a high band, even for native speakers sometimes. Native speakers often don't realise how seriously they need to present their written work. Frequently, they will look at the question, throw out an answer, but not think about the style, the vocabulary, or the level of sophistication that is required to achieve the highest bands.
Here are some specific things that you should be working on if you want a Band 7 or 8 in IELTS Writing.
These are the things that I work on with my students who work one to one with me, and in my IELTS Champions Club. These are the things that will help you with your writing.
1. Less is more.
That means don't write too much. If you write over 300 words, firstly, it will take longer, so you lose time Secondly it will result in the potential for more mistakes which you really don’t want. Thirdly, it will stop you from really focusing on what sentences and vocabulary you want to use, because you will be writing too quickly. Also, it isn’t necessary and won’t get you more marks. Stay around the word count. 150 to 180 for task one and 250 to 280 for task two. The other thing that ‘less is more’ refers to is your sentence structures. Try to be economical in your sentence structure. You must use complex sentences but you don’t need to be too long-winded! Use noun phrases. Don't keep repeating the same type of sentence. Think about using participles and gerunds. All of these things give a more sophisticated, more economical way of writing that will achieve you a 7.5 and or maybe 8.
2. Analyse your mistakes.
If you have a teacher and they correct your writing, you need to know why you made those mistakes What is the mistake and how can you fix it? If you don't, you're not going to improve. So, make sure your teacher explains clearly what the problem is and how you can correct it, and moreover, gives you some exercises to work on. If you're working by yourself, it's very difficult to analyse mistakes. But there is one tip. Do your writing in a word document, and use the ‘Read Aloud function if you have it (or another text to speech app). Listen to your writing being spoken out loud. If it sounds funny, it means there's probably a mistake. Stop the read aloud, look at the sentence and see what's wrong. This will help a little although it may not show you how to fix the problem.
3. Synonyms.
You need synonyms, and I'm thinking particularly of common words. Words like people, world, children, teenagers, etc. The words that you may need in many types of question. But be aware of which are suitable and make sure they are academic or formal. Don't use colloquial words. It is vital when you learn a new word to know if it is appropriate to use in writing.
4. Learn some knockout words.
Just a few words that are going to knock the examiner's socks off! These words can be a bit fancy, but NOT obscure! Most of these knockout words are probably nouns, adjectives and adverbs. But if you find a really good word, check that it is appropriate and that you can use it correctly. These kinds of words are less common so only ever use them once. The minute you use it a second time, you've destroyed the impact. Make sure you use them in your practice, don’t ever ‘try things out’ in the exam itself.
5. Look at the models.
There are models all over the place, but I would be very careful about some of the models. Go for the models that are done by teachers. Look at the models in the Cambridge books. Do not try to copy them simply analyse the vocabulary, the sentence structures and how things are expressed. Are there some words that you could use? Are there some phrases that you might want to try out? Try them in your own writing. Students who learn from models can often improve their writing a lot.
6. Try things out.
You will never develop your writing or improve your writing unless you try things. Now, obviously, trying new things needs feedback, so it's quite critical to get that feedback so you know you're using things correctly and this is really important.
7. Use the IELTS Reading.
When you go through the readings, you will see useful vocabulary. You will see academic writing or formal writing in GT. Some of those words and some of those sentence structures will be very appropriate for your own writing. You can borrow them and try them out. If you like them and they fit with your writing, then keep using them. The more you use them, the more they will become second nature. So that when you get into the exam, you'll be able to include them quite easily in your writing without any mistakes.
Finally, - one more tip, which I personally think is vital, and I know a lot of English language teachers and IELTS teachers agree with me on this. If you're looking for 7.5 or 8 do, get somebody who knows what they're doing to help you, because unless you do, it's going to be difficult for you to achieve those bands easily.
One very easy way of getting my help with IELTS Writing is to join the IELTS Champions Club, which I'm sure you've heard about. IELTS Champions Club members get help with everything from me including writing. IELTS Champions Club is quite a buzzy place. There are quite a lot of students posting writing, and we have Live training sessions where I correct student tasks.
Whatever you do, if you pay for anything in your IELTS, pay somebody to help you with your writing.
Follow the link below to finds out all about IELTS Champions Club: