IELTS Writing

This is my criticism of what I call the “formulaic template approach”. This is the approach typically used in IELTS training centres across China where the student is taught to memorise a template consisting of numerous generic sentences or partial sentences so that all they need to do is paraphrase the prompt a few times … Read more

One very common problem that students (below band 6) encounter is a limited range of vocabulary. Even if the vocabulary is used relatively effectively and accurately, the limitations become obvious due to repetition. Here are some examples from student writing: Sample 1 In this first sample, the word country is used repetitively. There are two … Read more

During the summer of 2018, students in my IELTS 2 class were asked to read articles on topics in the English language news and recommend ones that they found interesting to other students for class discussion. The results of that homework informed us that US politics and the environment are the most popular choices so … Read more