IELTS preparation blog

Our blog is a huge resource of IELTS news, tips and suggestions for your IELTS preparation.

Have a look at our most recent posts below, check out some of our previous posts in the categories section or sign up to receive updates by email or RSS in the subscription box to the right.

If you’d like to tell us what you think about a particular blog post or if you have a question about one of the posts, leave a comment or rate the post by clicking on the comments link below the title of the post.

Latest posts

Our IELTS tutors on video

By e-englishteacher.com on in IELTS speaking, IELTS tutoring updates, Videos. No comments »

Hi

We’ve recently made some videos of our IELTS tutors answering some IELTS Speaking Part 1 questions.

Check out the video below to see one of our tutors, Samantha, answering some questions on the topic of the weekend.

(If you can’t view the video above, try viewing it on our YouTube channel or our YouKu channel).

We made the videos to provide some examples of IELTS Speaking Part 1 questions and to introduce our tutors to you and other IELTS candidates.

You’ll find the videos of our other IELTS tutors on our IELTS tutors profiles.

Best wishes,

The e-englishteacher.com team

Have you been following the news of the oil spill in New Zealand? (2)

By Pete on in IELTS reading. No comments »

Hi

If you’ve been following the news on the Rena oil spill in New Zealand, you may be interested in the article at the link below. The article talks about the release of some of the little blue penguins that were coated in oil when the container ship Rena ran aground (i.e. got stuck on a reef).

As I’ve said before, as part of your IELTS preparation it’s a good idea to read articles related to environmental issues and the natural world, and this article is related to both of these topics.

Rena oil spill penguins released Read the full post »

Around, about and approximately

By Pete on in IELTS writing, Vocabulary for IELTS. No comments »

Hi

The words ‘around‘, ‘about‘ and ‘approximately‘ are often useful in IELTS Academic Writing Task 1, and so for those of you taking the IELTS Academic test it’s a good idea to know how to use (and spell) them correctly.

To see some examples of how to use them (and other words like them), have a look at the following sentences taken from the example answer in my post ‘The chart shows… (2)‘.

  • The number of men taking full-time courses increased from just under 100 000 in 1970/71 to around 200 000 in 1990/91, but still remained a fraction of the number studying part-time (about 900 000 in 1990/91).
  • …in 1990/91 the number of men and women studying part-time were approximately 900 000 and 1.1 million respectively. Read the full post »

The chart shows… (2)

By Pete on in Example answers for IELTS writing, IELTS writing. No comments »

Hi

As you probably know, in IELTS Academic writing task 1 you have to summarise the information in a graph, chart, table or diagram (or more than one of these).

To show you the kind of writing required for this task, have a look at the chart below from the official IELTS website, think about what information you should include in a written summary, and then read the following example answer.

The chart shows the number of men and women in further education in Britain in three periods and whether they were studying fulltime or part-time.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

IELTS Academic Writing Task 1

Read the full post »

um…er…

By Pete on in IELTS speaking. No comments »

Hi

If you listened to the recording I recommended last week in my post ‘An example of IELTS-type speaking (3)‘, you may have thought that the native speaker talking about his daily routine was very fluent. I certainly did when I first listened to the recording.

If you listen again, you’ll probably notice that he uses ‘er‘ and ‘um‘ every time he pauses to think of what to say next.

“I…um…usually wake up at 6 a.m…um…er…I have to go to work at eight, so I…um…”

These sounds, which are called ‘fillers‘, help to make him sound more fluent the first time you listen to him. If you use some fillers in your IELTS Speaking test when you pause to think of what to say next, your examiner may think you sound more fluent.

When I listened to the recording ‘Daily routine‘ a second time, I counted more than 40 ‘er‘s and ‘um‘s in total, which goes to show that it’s okay to use fillers frequently. (If you say ‘um’ or ‘er’ between every word, however, the examiner may think you’re not very fluent at all).

Pete

See our IELTS tutor profiles to find out more about our qualified and experienced English language teachers.