Ben Worthington: Improve your English and pass the IELTS exam!
Kris Broholm interviews Ben Worthington about improving English and passing the IELTS exam. Ben shares concrete strategies for success on the IELTS test, noting their applicability to general English proficiency. He also details his personal journey and experience specializing in IELTS instruction.
June 29, 2019 · 1 hr 10 min
EP 158: Ben Worthington: Improve your English and pass the IELTS exam!
0:00 / 1:09:53
Guest
Ben Worthington
What You'll Hear
- 1 Welcome & Today's IELTS Episode Overview
- 2 Guest's Journey: From England to IELTS Teaching
- 3 Understanding TOEFL, IELTS, and Other Exams
- 4 IELTS Writing: Master Academic Style & Get Feedback
- 5 IELTS Speaking: Boost Fluency and Confidence
- 6 IELTS Listening: Active Strategies & Exam Tricks
- 7 Beyond Tricks: Broaden English for Exam Success
- 8 Get Expert Help for Your IELTS Journey
Links Mentioned
Questions Covered in the Show
What is Ben's background and how did he get into teaching English for the IELTS exam?- 4m
What are the main English language proficiency tests and their purposes?- 17m
Which English skill is most challenging for students preparing for the IELTS exam?- 24m
Which English skill is the second most challenging for IELTS students and how is it tested?- 37m
How is listening assessed in the IELTS exam and what are tips for improving listening skills?- 54m
What are general tips for effective IELTS preparation and language learning motivation?- 1h 5m
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Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 158 of the Actual Fluency Podcast. Happy to bring you this episode with Ben from ieltspodcast.com. So a fellow podcaster. In this episode we get into how to improve your English, specifically with the IELTS exam in mind. So that's a very specific exam that is an international test of your English ability. And some people use it for getting new jobs or proving that their English is good enough to study in an English uh degree. So very specific tips on how to pass the exams, but all the advice actually applies to improving your English in general. So definitely stay tuned and listen to what Ben has to share with you today.
Other than that, I just want to say thank you so much for checking out the Polyglot Cruise. We're setting sail next April. So if you want to come with a week for a week-long luxury holiday in the company of some amazing polyglots, I'll be there too, and we'll do some presentations on how you can stay consistent in language learning, as well as some business-related presentations on how you can build a side income with languages or even a full-time if you want through either teaching or some of the other ways that that can be done. So check out polyglotcruise.com. Tickets are still available, and uh like I said, we're going in April. But until then, enjoy the episode with Ben, and I'll see you in the next one.
All right. Well, Ben, welcome to the Actual Fluency Podcast.
Uh, pleasure to be here, Chris. It's great to uh, great chatting with you. Looking forward to it.
Fantastic. So before we get into today's topic of uh English and and the IELTS, um, do you want to give the listeners just a little background of yourself, where are you from and where you live today?
Yeah, of course. Um, well, I'm from a very uh glamorous part of England called Huddersfield in Yorkshire. Um, I no longer have the Yorkshire accent. I lost that a while ago. Um, some vowels, um some sounds do still sound as though they've come directly from Huddersfield, but overall I think it's it's quite rounded and easier to understand nowadays, my accent.
Um, but yeah, so I was originally from the the Huddersfield and then I've been traveling quite a bit and I ended up in Spain because of Erasmus, like the European student exchange program. That's probably going to be terminated soon because of Brexit, but anyway, it was good while it lasted. Um so I did Erasmus and then uh did a year in Spain and then decided to stay and learn Spanish.
And after that, I thought I'm going to just stick around in Spain because I quite enjoyed it, I quite liked the culture. Um enjoyed the weather, and I just felt really settled there and I wanted to improve my Spanish as well. And so that's how I got into teaching English. And at first I was doing I was teaching uh younger students, and then um business students and then university students until I stumbled across, I guess you can say my calling which was the IELTS. Um and I just found that I really enjoyed preparing students for the IELTS exam. Much more than the other areas of teaching. So yeah, that's a very big overview, sort of like um, a very brief overview as well of of myself.
Fantastic. Uh, lots to dive into there. Um, I'm, what were you studying? Was it any language or English related in
Well, um before starting university, I went um abroad to Australia for a year. And there I was doing the typical sort of like um traveler jobs. And I realized like that, okay, I need a university education. And like an 18-19 year old, I was pretty lost and I didn't really know what to do so I chose international business. And and it was just like, okay, I need to do something.
Right.
And also I think yeah, another reason. I'm not proud to admit it but this is like the mindset I had back then. It was just like, okay, I'm going to avoid work for another four years. Yeah. It's called university, you know.
So and yeah, and I thought doing business studies would be quite um helpful, would be quite sort of like universal. So that's why I kind of just fell into that. But at the end of the year, I had the opportunity to do near the end of the course, I had the opportunity to learn a language. And I was like, wow, I'll be the first person in my family to learn a language if I do this. So I was like, yeah, I'll I'll take it. And so yeah, I ended up in Spain.
Right. How did you get the the job with the with the kids? Was that just like a a language school or how did you get into that?
I can I remember so clearly the first day teaching the the the kids because the the the lady, the like supervisor, she literally just threw a textbook at me and then she said, okay, you're going to be teaching in this place at 3:00 p.m. on Thursday. So I was like, all right. And then I turned up there. And all the kids were like about three or four-year-olds and I was like dressed Yeah, and I was totally I I was a bit unsure what to expect and so you know, it's better to be overdressed than underdressed. So it was like on about 35 degrees outside. It was absolutely roasting, like it usually is in Spain. And so I had like long black trousers on and and a shirt and then I had to go and teach these demonic four or five-year-olds. Who had no idea of the concept of like discipline or respect. It was just like, rah, rah, rah, you know.
But But fortunately, um, I also, I had quite a bit of experience with my cousins, you know, and also demonic. No, but I had quite like rowdy cousins, you know, and we used to play a lot when we were younger. And I kind of sort of like uh just relied on that experience. So sort of like being active and just keeping their interest, um you know, and just trying to be sort of as active as possible and doing my best um sort of like teaching the language. So unfortunately, I had pretty good control of Spanish. So I would talk in English, they wouldn't have a clue what I was saying and just switch off and go back to their activities. But then I started saying it in Spanish and I could say it louder and I could um yeah, and eventually I learned the death stare which just which pretty much got them into got them sort of like paying attention, you know, and got them disciplined rather than shouting and stuff like that. So um that's how I kind of fell into that to be honest with you.
Interesting.
Yeah, yeah. And then it kind of just stemmed from it kind of flowed from there the next teaching jobs and stuff.
How long did you did you stick with teaching the kids?
Um, I'd say it was about a good like two months. It was the duration of the contract, you know. And I I found like that the textbook was useless and also yeah, they gave me this ridiculously stupid puppet that was like a witch. It was Yeah, it was absolutely it was so stupid. It was this stupid um puppet that I had to put on my hand and and it was one of those moments where I was looking at the puppet and I was like, how did I get in this situation, you know? How did I get here? Um but I kind of like used it for two for two classes and then I was like, oh, this is stupid. And I remember actually one curious kid coming up and lifting up the skirt of the puppet and I was like, don't do that. Don't do that to Dizzie. Don't do that to Dizzie the Witch, you know.
But um So yeah, I did it for like two months and towards the yeah, from the middle and towards the end, I was quite enjoying it because I knew what I was doing and I came in there prepared and it's like the old saying says like preparedness makes us powerful but умедленно makes us fat. I think it was. I think it was from a Prodigy CD in like cover, but it's um but it's it's it's it was a good phrase, you know, like if I went in there prepared and I had a list of activities and backup activities as well just in case my um planned activities didn't work. Um I've got these backup ones. I could make the class entertaining. I could keep it active and I could keep it sort of like fast-paced so they weren't switching off, you know. And and yeah, it was and I think once once you get traction and once you started seeing results, it's you know, like language learning gets insanely more motivating and you just want to keep progressing and progressing. Yeah.
Definitely. Well, that's interesting. And then finally you got to teach some uh some slightly more uh older slightly older students. But um before we get into to some of the the the more English stuff.
So there are a few different tests in English, I know. Uh actually there's probably quite a few of them that I don't know as well. But if like which ones would people have heard of if they're looking for I I assume these tests the main purpose is to either for career advancement or maybe specific education requirements if you're going to study in English or can you just run us through some of the the the the tests that are out there and that people might have heard of?
Yeah, yeah. Um, well, there's the TOEFL, which is the the big one in the US. And it's also quite big in Latin America because a lot of people in Latin America want to go to the US or study there or work there. And so in the US they usually insist on a TOEFL certificate and a TOEFL score. Um, but also the IELTS is another one and that's making inroads into the US market. So it's kind of growing in popularity as more US universities start adopting the IELTS.
Um IELTS stands for International English Language Testing System. It's been around for ages. It used to be called the Davies test, but it got changed its IELTS which is you know, a little bit more marketable, a little bit more understandable. Um, this came from originally Australia. And uh then the British Council got involved and this one is the the leading test internationally, I think. Um, but it's definitely the leading one in the the former Commonwealth countries, like Australia, Canada, uh UK, Ireland. So that is the biggest one for those countries definitely.
And the students will take the IELTS exam to show their level of English. So maybe a I don't know, a doctor from Brazil who wants to start practicing in the UK, they'll probably be asked to take the IELTS test to show that they can communicate effectively. uh the IELTS exam or the PLAB exam, which is more for the medical sector. But they'll definitely be asked to take the IELTS one.
And also, um maybe students from I don't know, China, India, non-native non-English speaking countries, if they want to start studying in the UK, Australia or Canada, they'll want to they'll need to take the IELTS exam just to show that they'll be able to handle the lectures, the courses in English once they get to the university in the target country. And also, you can take the IELTS for immigration purposes and I know in Canada, if you've got a high IELTS score, that's trans and in Australia actually, is trans it it it corresponds to more points in your visa application. So there's roughly like three types of IELTS test takers.
And then just there's a few other exams. There's the Pearson Test of English, which is a relatively new one. Um but not that many places take it because not that many institutions insist on it. Um and then there's the Cambridge exams and the Cambridge Cambridge University also runs the what's it called? The BTEC exams, I think it's called. And those are sort of like similar to the Cambridge First Certificate. Um but with um but with more sort of like a business focus, business vocabulary. Uh yeah, so there's quite a big um range of English exams.
Right. Yeah, it seems like a bit of a a mess, but I guess that people who need it know which one they need.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. And they'll know the the target score and how many points it converts to and everything like that, yeah.
Right. And get are some of them transferable? So if you take the IELTS, can you go to America and transfer it to a TOEFL score in some way or?
I don't think so, no. No. Probably not because they're like separate companies and they're they're kind of like competing within each other. I think a lot of students would absolutely love that, you know.
Yeah. Already these test centers they are they are professional business, you know, how much is it to take a test? Is probably cheap is either?
Yeah, it's between 200 and 300 US dollars depending where you are and what type of exam you're doing. Like the IELTS recently launched IELTS on computer. So instead of pen and paper, you're doing everything on computer and they charge an extra $100 for doing that for that for that privilege.
For the convenience.
Exactly, exactly. The convenience of getting your paper marked quicker. Yeah, it's um it's definitely a business, yeah.
Yeah, so now that we have all the exams mapped out. Let's uh let's talk about the and I I assume this is similar for all the tests and I don't know all of them in detail. But I'm sure they all test you on kind of the four areas of of language like speaking, writing, reading, and listening, right?
Exactly, yeah. Exactly. Uh-huh.
So what's the if when you have like a someone who wants to do well in the exam or maybe even do better. What's what do you think is the most important one to focus on for the sort of average?
Um, I think the the area that the students have most difficulty with, um seems to be the writing. Because with the listening and the reading, um, like a lot of practice tests can bring you up to speed. It's quite it's quite straightforward to to progress and to improve um with those there are some specific strategies. Um but it's it's it's relatively straightforward.
Um but with writing, and also with the the speaking, I mean students also um struggle with the speaking. Um but it it's quicker to improve the speaking I think. And the writing though, um is sort of like a whole new beast because we're not talking about normal writing in another language. I mean English which is quite difficult, you you probably know yourself, like writing in another language is quite challenging as it is. But the IELTS exam, it asks you to write in academic English.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, yeah. So it's sort of like a completely and I when I was correcting essays, I don't do it anymore. We've got a team correcting essays. But I would consistently see students writing the same way as they'd speak. So they'd be writing with like contractions and they'll be like, yes, um I don't know and just using expressions they would in in their spoken English.
So they'd like put something like, I don't know. Um jail time is totally not right. It's it's so horrible what they do to the stu you know, what they do to prisoners and you know, just like a casual conversation. And it takes a lot to transform your writing. One, not only to get it grammatically um to a high standard, but also to start writing in an academic style, which for a lot of students, they've never seen before. They've never they've hardly ever encountered it, you know. And this this is why students struggle with writing the most.
That sounds like a top tip right there that if you're thinking about taking the IELTS, uh try to research a bit on how to write in academic uh because um people might be really good at writing but if they'd never written academically or don't even know what that means, then they could probably still get a terrible grade.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I've seen on uh I said on another interview with a I think our mutual friend we have uh Mr. Ollie Richards that we were saying we were talking about how even native English speakers uh can fail this test. Or well, it's not well, not exactly fail, but they can get lower scores just because they they're not aware of how to coherently structure a paragraph, you know, or they they're just not aware of sort of like academic writing because they haven't been writing for a long time and when they were it was just maybe the shopping list and you know, or just I don't know some more casual writing.
But yeah, students definitely need to sort of like identify the the weak spots and and then focusing on those.
Work on that and and that it is a test. So you can definitely find uh you know, like you said before, practice tests and there there's definitely going to be lots of supportive materials. So it's not like you're going to go into it completely unknown or how the format is going to be or what kind of questions you're going to be asked, you know. So you spend your time on that. definitely helpful.
Oh yeah, yeah, there's Yeah, yeah. But what I find a lot, um is that there's probably too many too much material out there. And what students will do is kind of like binge on like these, I don't know, 20 different YouTube videos on how to write a perfect essay, you know. And then kind of like um consider that as as preparing for the exam. I'm like, oh, I'm going to research how to write a perfect essay. But the thing is um and I'm guilty of doing this as well and I dive into a new subject that I want to learn about. But the thing is with the essay is like tiny different uh videos out there. The student will watch them all, get super confused and like not really progress forward, you know. So it's kind of like a can be a challenge as well finding the right material and then choosing the right material.
Um, so yeah, I I always kind of suggest the students to go to ielts.org where, you know, they can find out like from the horse's mouth, so to speak. Yeah. The the official requirements, what you need and basically just cut out or reduce the volume of the noise out there and just, you know, get it direct from the official organization.
That makes a lot of sense and and I suppose there's no kind of replacement for if you want to get better at writing then you need to write a fair bit.
Exactly. Exactly. Just today actually, I I told a student, he was asking me um online like, oh, how can I improve my writing? And I was like, okay, like if you if you're totally new to this, you can find um on my site ieltspodcast.com like tons of model sample essays and copy them out, pen and paper, you know. Get a feel for essay writing, get a feel for the structure, maybe learn some new um grammar forms, learn some new vocabulary. Copy them copy them out.
And then when you're feeling a bit um more confident, then start writing essays and you can send them to us and we'll give you some feedback. And from my experience, that's been like the fastest way to to improve, you know, getting that feedback and yeah, taking action, writing the essays and getting feedback.
Yeah, but sometimes people I think they overthink it a bit and they do a big research mission and they they watch all the clips, they read all the posts and they get all the advice but at the end of the day they forgot to actually do some writing. I mean, it's the same with all the other elements I assume that practice makes perfect. And if you don't actually try and produce something, you don't know where your problems are and you want to get some feedback on that for sure.
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, if you can't see this but I was nodding my head all the way through that. Like, does this um because I think it's just because we're just swimming, we're drowning, we're drowning in information and it's not helping. Uh especially if um somebody's got an analytical brain and kind of overthink it overthink it and just end up confused or as we say in analysis paralysis. Yeah.
It's exactly what you say. That the results come from taking action and getting the feedback, not sort of like strategizing and overthinking and planning and watching binging on YouTube. It's it's action that usually brings the most results.
Yeah, and and I would argue that action action is just better anyway because you'll find out from the action where you need to go next. But if you never really get started or you just do a little bit then you never really there's no way to progress from there because you don't you don't have enough data points. It's similar to learning anything really if you can research it all day but I I guess what I'm trying to say is that just doing it putting it into action and maybe it's not as well thought out or anything but just getting something done is more important than just being stuck in that analysis paralysis loop like you were talking about.
Exactly, yeah. Exactly. Totally agree with you there. And I think we're all guilty of this but I think our sort of like true growth comes when we recognize that what we're doing isn't going to improve our situation. And two, we sort of like take action but also sort of like take action on a consistent basis.
Like I'll give you an example. I'm reading a book now on how to improve my memory. And more than once, actually, I'm listening to it on uh it's just an audiobook, but more than once I was thinking, I'll just carry on listening to the next few chapters. This is quite entertaining. And what I really should have been doing is stopping the recording and doing the exercises to improve my memory, you know. But not because at the end of the day, we need to sort of like move away. Okay, this is it's entertaining, yeah, but and I do want what the book, what the what it says on the can, you know, I do want sort of like these benefits that come with buying the book. But unless I take action, I'm not going to get them. So, yeah, I had to really just stop listening and say, okay, I'm not listening to any more chapters. It's pointless until I do the homework that the actual recording says I should do.
Right. So if you struggle with writing, write more, get feedback, try to understand the assignment better as well. So look at the what kind of writing are they looking for, what kind of um, I don't know if there's any formatting or anything, but just what is the kind of what's the assignment basically?
Because you don't want to you want don't want to send like a a business letter style writing to if if the assignment was supposed to, you know, as you would talk to a friend. opposed to for this test, you know, you don't want to sound like you're just speaking normally if if it is an academic style they require.
Absolutely, yeah. And if you go to just Google and you can put like IELTS official, ielts.org official criteria PDF writing, and you can find out like a full breakdown on how your essay is going to be marked. Yeah.
Yeah, and it's sort of like a roadmap. So you know that your essay if you want to get a band seven or higher, you know, it's got to be cohesive and coherent. There's going to be some um strong lexical resource there, which means like using some special vocabulary for the for that topic. Um so yeah, absolutely. You need to find out what is being asked of of you, and what you actually need and then start taking action, getting feedback and uh yeah, and start improving.
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So what is the second uh hardest thing for most students?
Um, well, the writing is quite a beast to be honest. There's like there's the task one and the task two. And there's also IELTS academic and IELTS general and I'll just briefly say for task two, it's broadly the same. You have to write this essay, maybe it's about pollution, maybe it's about crime, maybe it's about education. And then for task two academic, you have to write about a graph. And then for task one general, um, you have to write a letter. And it can be like a letter to a, yeah, a letter to a friend, a job application letter, a letter of complaint. It can be one of those. And this is where as you just mentioned, the language you use has to be appropriate, you know, so we can't start your letter of complaint, like, hi mate.
[Laughter]
Long time no see. Um heard your dog the other night, sounds like a beaut but can you please keep it quiet, you know.
[Laughter]
You know, it it there's the register that comes along with like writing the formal letter of complaint or, you know, it's um the the appropriate vocabulary. But anyway, moving on to your your question, sort of like the second largest difficulty or the second biggest difficulty students might encounter. I'd probably say the speaking. Yeah.
And this comes down um to sort of like not only do we have to have some decent language skills to show the examiner we can communicate but we also need some a strong suite of exam skills. So we need to I'll just give you an overview on how the IELTS speaking is structured. So we have the part one which is sort of like a just general chit chat questions. But we have to treat it like a job interview. So we're not going to go in there like slouched, uh and casual. We're going to go in there like a job interview, you know, back straight, pleasant attitude and quite professional. Um but also like and quite confident as well. And that's part one and they'll just ask you some general questions to help you get feel at ease, to relax you. Sort of like, oh, why are you taking the IELTS? Where are you from? Um tell me about your hometown, you know, just just general, easiest stuff like that.
And then there's part two where you get to choose one of three Q cards and on the Q cards, it's basically a question prompt with three points. So it might be like, um tell um share an experience, share a foreign holiday that you went on. Um share where you went, why you went there, who you went with and why you enjoyed it. Or something like that. Yeah, and then you'll have to talk for about two minutes about that topic on the card. And talking for two minutes non-stop is something that we don't really encounter in everyday life, you know. I think we've all got a friend who can talk for 10, two minutes non-stop. But most people find it difficult to speak for two minutes non-stop, you know. And and especially in a sort of like a formal situation with somebody that you've never seen before and about a topic that you don't know that you've never prepared for before. And this is like the exam skills element. And this is sort of like where students can of struggle because they get nervous and their true ability sometimes isn't really represented in the exam, you know. So it can be quite tricky for students and quite frustrating as well.
And then there's part three where the examiner is going to ask you more questions about the previous topic. But the questions are going to be more abstract. They're going to not only ask you your opinion but maybe about I don't know, society's viewpoint or the general viewpoint. Um maybe you'll have similar questions asked repeatedly. So just really testing and probing your skill with the English language. And a lot of students can find this quite frustrating, you know. Um and what the examiner really kind of wants to explore and determine is if you could say sort of like similar concepts but with different language. And your ability to explain abstract concepts, um and complex ideas and um yeah, so this is what students can find quite uh challenging. So this is like we said before, like familiarity with the exam and maybe the few tips that you can get. There's plenty of tips out there. We've got a load on our website as well. Um but getting familiar and also just getting practice in exam conditions is sort of like the best way to to deal with this, to get familiar with it and get experience with it.
Right, so in terms of speaking, I can definitely see why that would be problematic for for some, especially if you live in a country that doesn't have English as a as a main language. So apart from getting more practice, so that's like online lessons maybe or maybe going to meetups where you language meetups where you practice. Are there anything that people can do to perform better in this section of tests?
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean also it it depends on the situation of the student, you know. If they've got, if they're quite wealthy, then I'd invest in a teacher uh daily, you know, an hour every day or something like that. Um it doesn't have to break the bank, you know, you can find um some quite economical teachers, uh maybe from the Philippines.
Um but also, you really got to get it clear in your mind that it's that it's not a cost. It's kind of like an investment because um if you not it's going to be an investment in your language skills, but it's also if you when when you pass the exam, um especially the IELTS exam, it's just going to open up so many doors, you know. And the return on your investment, the ROI on that investment, investing in yourself is going to be is going to be much better than buying some cryptocurrencies, for example.
Yeah, it's not going to be that expensive. You go on something like italki and and do it over Skype. You can get English lessons for, you know, maybe 5, 10 US dollars an hour from people who are maybe students or kind of they're not teachers per se, but that kind of natural practice of just the chit chat section. Maybe you can do like questions and answers and practice those to feel more more comfortable.
Absolutely. Do like mock exams with with a with a tutor like that. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's what I was going to suggest, like doing mock exams, getting used to the format. Um and if you if uh the listeners are listening here, if the listeners are listening. No, if the listeners are hopefully. If the listeners are considering doing this, uh and one thing that I always suggest to to students is that, you know, kind of almost suggest to take control of the class and just say, look, I want to work on accuracy for the next 20 minutes. So I want you to interrupt me or write down every single time I make an error and then we're going to keep on practicing these until we get error-free for this topic or for this speech, yeah. Or and then in the next 20 minutes, we're going to practice fluency. So I don't want any interruptions, you know. I want you just to sort of like mark down maybe the errors, but I don't want interruptions because I'm just working on fluency now.
And and yeah, it was and I think just equipped with this this small piece of knowledge, you can get you can get more out of your class because the the teacher is going to know, you know, what you want. And you can really sort of like work on improving your weak spots. So if your weak spot's fluency, then um you don't want the examiner interrupting you every two seconds for something that's wrong. You want the examiner to be able to you want your teacher to be silent. Whereas if you're if you're quite fluent but you're making errors every three words, then you want the teacher to be interrupting you or to be marking down your, you know, to be marking down your errors. So I think that's um that's uh probably help you get the most out of your your class. And that's not just for English, it's for learning any language with the tutor.
But even if a tutor is out of bounds, um sort of like they if it's too expensive for you or you just don't have access to the to a tutor. What I suggest to students is there's a few different techniques. You can mimic um where you just um yeah, you just listen to a recording and then repeat it uh and try and aim for the same intonation, the same accent. Um that's really a powerful way to improve and cost-effective but it comes back to discipline and consistency in doing that.
Another good way, um one student told me is to start speaking aloud all the time, you know. In fact, I had one Spanish friend, Pedro, who used to wheel his grandma around the park talking to her in English. She had no idea what he was saying. But he just kept on. Exactly, yeah. I don't think he was talking with her, he was talking at her, poor lady. But she was just happy to be spending time with her grandson. Yeah, but uh he he just needed to get the speaking practice, you know. And he didn't care if he seemed like a bit of a an a loony loony in the park. But, you know, it's just getting that practice and building up the fluency. And, yeah. I think there's lots of different ways and it kind of goes back to what we touched on before. You've got to kind of find out which method works for you best, you know. Right. And because maybe mimicking doesn't work. Maybe transcribing is your work is is the best way you can improve your vocabulary. Or maybe you find speaking is the best way. And also there's, you know, recording yourself, listening back to it and spotting your errors. I think there's quite a a wide range, but it ultimately comes down to like how much money you're going to invest, how much time do you have and um what works best for you as well.
Yeah, and one thing I was wondering is do you get judged on like uh pronunciation accuracy? Like uh accent? That kind of stuff or is it purely the content of what you're saying as long as it's uh you know, understandable.
Um you get assessed on on your fluency, on your grammatical accuracy and the the the coherence as well. But they're not going to mark you down if if if you've got I don't know, Canadian accent. Maybe they'll mark you down if you've got a Liverpudlian accent.
They should probably.
Exactly. You know, if you're thinking if you're learning English and you spend a lot of time with textbooks or practice exams, you might get a very good level in English, but you might have a really strong accent from your your home country like uh from India, China, wherever you're learning from. I was wondering, is that part of the assessment?
And I don't think you'll get you won't get marked down on your accent but you will get marked down if it is hindering the comprehension of the listener. You know.
Hard to understand.
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Uh-huh.
Okay, fantastic. So it doesn't go against you as long as you're just.
Yeah, as long as you're understood, you know.
Understandable.
Yeah, yeah. It's quite it's quite uh practical pragmatic in that in that in that sense. Um but what I'd say to students who do have strong accents is like it's not as difficult as you might think to improve it. I find that if you slow down and you start sort of like pronouncing every single sound in the word, um you can improve the clarity and and of your speech quite quickly.
Um and there's quite a few techniques actually in in the online course we have, we go into a few a few different techniques to exactly address this problem of sort of like of of accent and of nerves and confidence-building techniques, which goes back to what we were saying before. Like, you could be really good at speaking English with your friends but if your confidence is low in an exam setting, then you really need to work on your confidence which is questionable to an extent how much of a language skill that is, you know. Um, obviously there's some overlap there. But yeah, uh it's like once you start digging into it, like a lot of topics it quickly expands and it can be it can become quite overwhelming for a lot of students.
Yeah, I can imagine that.
Um, but but in general the advice of do more of it applies to all of the the skills here. Um what what can we say about the listening? So what how is that uh tested? Is there some kind of multiple choice or?
Yeah, yeah. The the listening, uh you go in there and you've well, it depends if you're doing it on the computer or if you're doing it with the you know, pen and paper and the marking sheet and stuff like that. But in IELTS listening, it's quite unique because they'll only play the recording once.
Wow, okay.
Yeah. So you really got to pay attention. And this goes back to what we've said numerous times now. It's like an exam skill. So you listen and there's like different sections and different skills. So in some of them, you've got to complete uh the sentence. Some of them, it's multiple choice. Uh some of it, you got to like label a diagram. There's all these kind of different sections and it gets progressively harder. But you've got to really like focus.
And uh just a tip here for anybody who's considering it. If you can go to an exam center that uses headphones, it's going to work in your advantage to your advantage because I've heard about students going there and the exam center was next to a highway and at crucial points, a lorry just stormed past and I was like, you know, just at the exact point where you're like listening for that information. Um so yeah, and it is it is quite exhausting, you know. Um so this is where it comes back to training and doing the practice exams as I mentioned before, getting familiar.
And also to improve on this, I guess I'd say before, you need to do practice exams but don't mindlessly do exam after exam. Do maybe one or two exams and then isolate identify and isolate the area where you're losing points on and then just focus on that area. And and this way, you're going to improve your score faster rather than doing test after test after test. If you're just doing a section, multiple choice section after, you know, repeatedly, then you'll quickly bring your skills in that area up to scratch and hopefully stop losing points in that in that area.
Yeah.
Yeah, and obviously listening is one of the trickiest uh skills to learn for any language or any language learner. In that people speak really fast and it's hard to kind of sometimes hear where the first word and starts and or ends and the second word starts again.
Exactly, yeah. Exactly.
What do you what do you suggest for people to I guess, you know, you can do the practice exams and and then improve your listening at the same time as improving your exam technique. But are there anything that people can do outside other than obviously just getting a lot of uh, you know, input, just having watching or listening to a lot of English programs, but is there anything they can do with sort of an active active learning that.
Great point. Great point. Um, I think transcribing is a fantastic way because you're going to learn some new vocabulary. You're going to learn it perfect, first-hand, you know. Uh, all the structures. And you're going to learn the perfect pronunciation at the same time. And you're going to get a very useful skill of being able to sort of like focus and write at the same time. Which is very handy when we're talking about the IELTS exam. So I think that's a really sort of like powerful technique to get your exam skills. Um, and also you're going to boost your vocabulary. You're probably going to increase your your your grammar skills and learn new vocabulary but learn it with the correct pronunciation first time.
Um, also like you've just mentioned, connected speech. If you can spend a little bit of time just dissecting the English language and just learning where these connected parts, um, which words get pushed together. Which words remain separately. If you can get used to this, um, and this is another thing that transcribing will help you with. Um, but this will also help you. And also, um, and just going back to the actual exam, that there's going to be different accents on the exam.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, so and at some points there's going to be different, uh there's going to be a few people talking at the same time. So maybe there'll be arranging a meeting. And they're quite sneaky. So they'll say something like, "Okay, so let's arrange the meeting for Thursday at 3:00 p.m. Everybody agreed?" "Yes." So the novice student might write, "Ah, the meeting's at Thursday 3:00 p.m." because it was so clear.
And then the last second they might just switch it and they'll say something like, "No, no, no, actually Friday's better for me. Can everyone do Friday?" "Yes." You know, so it's switched to Friday 3:00 p.m. Or they'll say, "Oh, actually tomorrow's better. Can everybody do tomorrow?" "3:00 p.m." And they'll say, "Yes." Um, so it's actually the meeting's at Friday 3:00 p.m. but they never actually mentioned Friday 3:00 p.m. They'll just say tomorrow at the same time. Right. So there's kind of little tricks like that that you need to be aware of. And the answer might not be as glaringly obviously obvious as the exam writer wanted you to believe.
Right. So that's another top tip for anyone who language exam is be a little bit of a Sherlock Holmes and in that you the first instinct might not always be the correct one. You want to test your theory and uh and see what comes out of the whole conversation.
Exactly, yeah. Exactly. And and kind of like go for the meaning of the of the the sentence or the conversation rather than sort of like the explicit keywords. Because if you're just listening for keywords, you can get severely distracted and and and end up in a wrong place.
Yeah, but other than that, listen and and and just for the transcribing, would you mind just explaining what exactly you mean by that in case anyone's wondering? Do you mean you put on a recording, a TV program, or what would you use and would you start stop all the time or reduce the playback speed or because obviously, most people, I don't know, maybe it's just me, I I definitely can't transcribe in real time in normal uh speed of English or or Danish for that matter. And that's even on a keyboard where I can type a lot faster than I can write by hand. But so just to give people the practical.
Right. Yeah. That's a good point. Um, I mean, I kind of yeah. But what I recommend is that you find something, first of all, you find material that you love. So if you love Formula One, try and find a podcast about Formula One. Because that's going to help you keep interest uh maintain your interest. And you're more likely to do it more often, you know, rather than some random podcast. Second, make sure that it's um native English speaker level. Um and make sure that if you can, I mean it's not essential, but ideally, maybe one or two speakers on there at the same time. So you can kind of get a variety. What is essential is a transcription. If you can find a podcast that has a transcription with it. Uh BBC 6-Minute English is excellent because not only do they give you the transcript, but they also ask some comprehension questions at the end of it. And that's really useful.
And then what I recommend to students to do is get some headphones. Um and it's better to do it with headphones because the speakers will like the those earplug ones. If you use those ones because they directly um sort of like excite or or make the auditory nerves, um, I'm not really explaining it well but they kind of like stimulate the auditory nerves. And that's what you want. And plus it's going to isolate the sound and just block off everything else so you can give it your full concentration. And then listen for a few seconds, pause it, type it out or write it out or write it out pen and paper. But the key thing, I think is to go slowly. And make sure you've got the transcription there so you can compare and contrast afterwards. And once again, you might find that maybe the modal verbs is where you are making errors. So you can start paying more attention and just review it like, okay, I lost, I would have lost points at this point because it's modal verbs or.
Right.
So yeah, um I think there's a few different ways to improve, but broadly speaking, there's um those techniques, which I mentioned.
Just do it as well. And I suppose that if you're kind of looking to improve then if you understand 90% of the text and looking up those words every other sentence that you miss will eventually add to your own vocabulary and you should be able to.
Absolutely. Yeah, this just reminds me of another point actually that um say if you've studied, I don't know, um medicine four years at university and your passion is maybe sports and cricket or whatever. Um then maybe maybe you're going to have a weak spot when it comes to talking about education or maybe you're going to have a weak spot about technology. So, um, be this will also help you with your essay writing preparation. But you can also broaden the material that you're reading. Right. So can it be about anything in the test? Yes. Like a list of categories they'll choose from. Um, there's about 12 topics. It's like education, society, environment, um, there's quite a few different topics.
And if a student knows maybe the probably a student will know two or three topics inside out. Have a lot of knowledge about it, a lot of vocabulary, but maybe business, for example, is a topic that they're not so familiar with. And the vocabulary is not up to scratch. So it's worthwhile having a look at all the different task two questions and maybe just planning essays. And if you find that you're you're running thin on ideas or vocabulary for these topics, then start jumping into maybe bbc.co.uk or guardian.com and start reading about these topics. And this and actively reading. So copy-pasting vocabulary, copy-pasting terms, specialist terms. Um, yeah, basically the same philosophy as we've been saying throughout the interview. Sort of like, find your weaknesses and identify them and improve on on those specific ones to just bring everything up to a high level.
Right. And uh or or you can just learn about one topic and hope you get lucky.
[Laughter] Yeah.
I can't think of anything. Yeah.
[Laughter] IELTS casino.
Yeah, that's a terrible idea. And because we had a similar structure in the high school exams here in Denmark. And I remember a lot of people would have studied, I don't know, maybe 80% of the topics, and that might might have been 20 different topics. So many people would have studied 16, 18, hoping that they didn't take the one they studied. Um, so that's obviously a terrible idea that.
[Laughter] Yeah.
Infers disappointment. But um, but yeah, I think that that covers kind of the and the what I like about this is also that this advice is, yeah, it's very applicable to the IELTS and and other language tests. But what you're doing is you're essentially improving your English. So you can use that for anything, whether you're taking a test or not. And, um, and I I I really like that kind of um, thorough, um, uh, going through all the areas one by one. That's not something I've done before.
But, um, but in conclusion, just do more of all the things, be sure to read the specifications. Make sure you're careful with what they ask and and what kind of uh information is leaked in the in in the different media, whether they're trying to set you up for a trap or not. And, um, and get help. I think that's a big big one as well.
Yeah.
That's a perfect segue into the uh outro here. So if people want help with their IELTS exams, so they can come to you.
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The important thing that you said there, you kind of hit the nail on the head is sort of like get help. You know, because a lot of students and I've been guilty of myself, I've been guilty of this myself a few times. Sort of like this independent warrior, lone wolf syndrome, which isn't like masculine. It's not it's not effective. Um so yeah, it's it's get get help and reach out and send emails, ask questions. And at the uh at my site ieltspodcast.com, you know, I encourage students to send me emails and ask us questions.
Um and just remember, you you're not alone doing this, you know. Fair enough, you might be the only person in your village preparing for the exam, but there's thousands and thousands of people every day preparing for the exam, you know. And if you send out an email, we can give you some guidance, we can help you. Also, you can send us your essay, we've got an essay correction service as well, which is like 24-hour turnaround time. We've got X IELTS examiners correcting the essays. And of course, we've got the online course of jump to a band seven or it's free. Um online IELTS course covering speaking, the reading and the uh writing, of course. So.
Fantastic. Yeah. So go there, yeah. And get some help. Yeah. I think getting help is is not only because it's uh, you know, you don't want to be alone. It's also just the most effective way that I know of to improve language skills. Possibly any skill is is to get instant direct feedback from somebody who knows a little bit more than you do or a lot more in some cases. So that's that's why I think that's also a general recommendation for the podcast. Pretty much every episode I think we we talk about tutoring in one way or another because it's just such a lot of people have this idea of tutoring that it's only in evening school and it's very expensive and it's very inconvenient.
But now you can get and this goes for for exam preparation as well. You can you can find people who have experience with that and get private lessons with them on italki or other places like your site. And you just get that direct feedback convenient online for very affordable amounts of money compared to you know, attending a a full evening class of English or or other languages.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Education has been completely transformed in the last 10 years, you know, the rise of these services, like my own online course and uh italki and stuff like that. And I'm also like getting help, you know, and I think what's beautiful about it is sort of like you can tailor it as well to your needs. So if if the only thing you want to do is improve your writing, then you just send essays, you know. If the only thing you want to do is improve your speaking, then you get like one-on-one classes, or you can do an online class or whatever. But you can really sort of like pick the the area, whereas 20 years ago, if you wanted to improve your English, maybe if you're lucky you might have an English tutor in your in your village or in your town, you know. And even then, you're going to be sort of like subject to what they want to do. But now it's just it's so open. It's so such a good time to to learn a language.
And just one last thing, um, I was worried about losing my Spanish last year. So I got a Spanish tutor, Alejandro, and and maybe I was a bit annoying for him, but I I I asked Alejandro, I was like, okay, this is the format of the class. And I want you to ask me what I did well last week, what I would did what I did um what I did badly, and what are my goals for next week, and what I learned last week. And we just went through these questions, you know, and it was really good because it was reviewing my Spanish. He was noting down the mistakes and it was like learning in other areas as well. So it killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.
Fantastic. Yeah, and uh for English as well, that that that'll be the same experience for most people is that that the learning you do to prepare for the test is going to be with you afterwards. So you have a a higher level of English to when you talk to people, when you apply for jobs or when you, you know, just go out and socialize, you know, your English is going to be so much better because you put the effort into the test because at the end of the day, yeah, it's nice to have a great score on a test.
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And this is why it kind of gets a bit disheartening when you see students just piling on, like looking for IELTS tips and tricks. And like, you know, if you just focused on your language skills, it's not only going to be beneficial for you in the future. As you just said, that you're going to be a a better employee, you're going to be a better person. You can speak with more people. You're going to be able to help more people. And you you do get this if you sort of like prepare effectively for the exam and not just focus on the if you focus on improving your language skills and then your your exam skills, you're going to be you're going to come out better but it's so prevalent that a lot of students they just go, "Ah, 20 exam tips."
And the last thing I'll say is that even if like this episode obviously is very useful for people who are going for the IELTS test, but I would say also that if you're if you don't need the test for anything and you if you're just looking to improve your English, booking the test can be a very useful motivator. And obviously that that assumes you have the the funds available to to book uh IELTS. So that's why I think that a lot of people do quite well in these tests because they they it's a very specific form of language learning. Whereas I just want to speak some more Spanish to my mates. I mean.
Exactly.
Exactly. Yeah. It's nice, but it's not you can't measure it in any way. So that's why that's the last recommendation I I throw in there. Yeah, and the official exam is going to give you a a real thorough push. Because like chatting with your friends is one thing and, you know, fluent conversation is all good.
Um but the official exam is going to push you in area in areas that you'll easily neglect just by casual study, you know. And also, as you just mentioned, it's going to be um a good sort of like um marker. So you can, you know, see your progression, see your improvement. And obviously, as I get it officially recognized.
Yeah, that's that also that's a nice thing to have as well. The the the victory, you know, finishing your own things and you can put it on your wall and stuff. You know, that that it counts for something.
Exactly. Exactly. I should get one for Spanish actually just to remind my family that I'm the only one who could speak foreign language. Yeah, I'm certified in in Spanish. Oh, by the way, did I tell you I've now got a certificate. by the way. Just in case you didn't understand didn't get it, yeah.
Uh-huh. Well, thank you so much, Ben, for your uh very extensive uh tour of the IELTS and and also helping people to improve their English. I'm sure that people will come over to you and and ask you some questions. Can you remind us just the the address again?
Yeah, um it's ieltspodcast.com and yeah, uh thank you very much, Chris, for having for having me. Uh I really enjoyed it. Uh it's been good fun and yeah, thank you very much.
You're very welcome. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Actual Fluency Podcast. I really appreciate having you here today. Just before you leave, I just want to give a quick shout-out to today's sponsor which is italki. italki is the tutoring platform where you can find affordable tutors for every language in the world, pretty much. So get started today and get a free $10 credit when you book your first lesson. If you go to actualfluency.com/italki, and that's spelled I T A L K I. So give it a go and feel how tutoring can really boost and enhance your language learning.