The IELTS listening test is designed to test, not improve, your listening. One common mistake that many of my students make is trying to use practice tests to improve their listening skills.
Testing your listening is what you do when you take a practice IELTS test. You listen once and find out how good your listening is.
This does not improve your listening very well. In the long-term, it does. Over years and years but it is a slow way to improve.
The other option is to develop your listening using the 3 keys:
1. Listen to something short.
2. Listen again and again.
3. Write something while you listen.
The difference between testing and developing your listening is like the difference between playing a game of football and practicing one skill.
If you play a game you are focusing on tons of different skills at once. You will improve but it will take a long time.
If you want to improve one specific skill, for example shooting, you should practice shooting again and again. This will quickly develop your shooting skills.
Listening is the same – practice one skill again and again and you will improve your listening for IELTS quickly!
Key #1: Listen to something short.
Don’t used a full practice test! Instead, listen to part of it (less than 1 or 2 minutes long). Or find a clip on youtube from BBC One Minute World News or Ted Ed.
It should one be 1 – 2 minutes maximum.
Key #2: Listen again and again.
The reason why you should listen to something short is so that you can listen to it again and again.
And why does listening to something again and again improve (not test) your listening?
Because…
1. You will hear the same sounds repeatedly and get better and better at recognising them.
2. You will hear new sounds and words each time and begin to recognise them as well.
That’s the whole reason why you should listen to something again and again to improve your listening!
Key #3: Write something while you listen.
The IELTS listening test tests 3 skills – Listening, reading and writing.
You have to read the questions. Listen to the answers. And write them.
This means that when you are developing your listening you should do some writing. It will improve your ability to listen and write at the same time and also will focus your listening on one particular skill.
Simple Listening Activities
Here are 10 simple activities for improving your listening:
1. Listen and write down the keywords.
2. Listen and write down a 1 sentence summary after you listen. Then listen again and make your summary more detailed.
3. Listen and write down words with difficult sounds (for example, all words that end with ‘s.’ words that end with ‘y’ and ‘een’ like 50 and 15).
4. Listen and write down every word. If you’re using Ted Ed you can check with the tapescript.
5. Listen and pause – then write down the last sentence or last 5 words your heard.
6. Listen and pause in the middle of a sentence – then write down how you think the sentence will end. Listen to the rest of the sentence and check.
7. Listen and try to write down the unfamiliar words. Then look them up in the dictionary and fix your spelling.
8. Listen and draw a picture of what they are talking about.
9. Write down the question words ‘Where,’ ‘When,’ ‘Why,’ ‘Who,’ ‘How,’ and ‘What’ and try to answer while you listen.
10. Listen and make a mind map of the topic.
For all of the ideas above you should listen multiple times – at least 5 times.
If your listening is only 1 minute long that will only take 5 minutes!
Do this at least once a day and I promise your listening will improve more quickly than any other method.
Here’s a video from ourYouTube Channelexplaining the fastest ways to improve your listening!
Now it’s your turn! Put your answers in the comments.
Do you have any links to interesting listenings on YouTube?
Welcome to today’s HowtodoIELTS vocabulary post. Today’s word is Impending /ɪmˈpɛndɪŋ/.
It is a negative adjective that means something bad is about to happen. It’s negative because it never means something good. An impending trip is not a trip you are looking forward to – it’s one you are afraid of for some reason.
The most common collocations for impending are impending doom, impending death, impending disaster, impending crisis, impending changes, impending decision, and impending event. For most of you, the IELTS test is an impending event.
An example sentence with impending is ‘The impending crisis is avoidable if we take measures to prevent it.’
It is only used as an adjective, never really as a verb or noun and, like adjectives generally, it comes before a noun (impending disaster).
The stress is on the second syllable ‘pen.’
Here is the example reading sentence I took from an IELTS reading: In recent years we have all been exposed to dire media reports concerning the impending demise of global coal and oil reserves.
Don’t enter the room until the examiner invites you in
You will told to wait on a chair outside the examination room.
You might see a candidate leave and think that it’s your turn.
Don’t assume anything. The examiner will call you when they are ready.
Be friendly, but don’t ask any questions.
Once the examiner invites you into the room, they will show you where to sit.
Feel free to offer a polite greeting e.g. “Good morning/afternoon”.
However I strongly suggest that you don’t ask “How are you?” Personally I don’t mind it, but this will make some examiners uncomfortable.
Sit down and wait for the examiner to start the test
Put your ID card or passport on the table, but don’t hand it over until the examiner asks to see it (which will be later).
Before the test officially starts, the examiner might check your name (to make sure you’re the correct candidate).
They may even ask if you are ready to start or ask how you are.
Just give very short answers. This is not part of the test.
When the test starts just say your full name and wait for the first real question
The examiner will start the test with the following information for the recording:
“This is the speaking test for the International English Language Testing System…”
They will read out the date, the test centre’s name and number, your name and candidate number, and then their name and examiner number.
Finally they will say:
“Good morning/afternoon. My name is…………Can you tell me your full name please?”
This is not the first question. This is just for you to confirm you are the right candidate.
Don’t comment on your name or the examiner’s name.
And definitely don’t take this opportunity to talk about yourself.
Just say your full name and wait for the first real question which comes after the following:
“Now, in this first part I’d like to ask you some questions about yourself…”
During the Test.
Don’t throw the question back to the examiner.
This is a test, not a conversation.
For example:
Examiner: “Are you doing anything special this weekend?”
Candidate: ”Yes, I’m going to Queen’s Park. Do you know it?”
The examiner is not allowed to answer questions, and so you might make the examiner feel uncomfortable. They will have to ignore your question.
Ask them to repeat questions but don’t ask them to change or explain them
You can ask for each question to be repeated so make sure you practise this.
For example, “Sorry, can you repeat that please?”
You can also ask to have individual words explained
For example “Sorry, what does tradition mean?”
However, you cannot ask the examiner to change or explain the whole question.
After the Test
Say goodbye and leave.
The examiner will end the test with the following:
“Thank you very much. That is the end of the speaking test.”
After this, the examiner will politely invite you to leave the room.
After this you might feel you want to stay to chat to the examiner, sit down on the floor and cry for a bit, or even ask about your score.
However the examiner wants you to go because they can write down your scores.
And they usually don’t have much time to prepare for the next candidate.
So I suggest saying a simple goodbye and then leaving.
For example:
“Thank you. It was nice to meet you / have a nice day. Goodbye.”
If you’re interested in seeing what the difference is between scores – watch this video from our YouTube Channel to see the difference between a BAND 5 and a BAND 7.
Now it’s your turn! Put your answers in the comments.
I get questions all the time about how to improve IELTS reading. The short answer is: vocabulary, vocabulary, vocabulary.
But the short answer takes a long time – years and years and years to build up your vocabulary to get a good score. You know better than me how long it takes – how long have you been learning English for already?
The vocabulary journey is like climbing Mount Everest.
The shortcut is one skill that is by far the most important for the test.
If you improve this skill you can improve your reading score, even without improving your vocabulary much.
You won’t get to the top of Mount Everest practicing this skill, but it’s like a secret staircase to get you halfway up the mountain.
The skill is skimming.
Skimming means to read for the main idea or gist of the whole reading.
Dave
When should you Skim?
Let’s look at exactly when you should do this in the reading test. The basic breakdown for IELTS reading is:
Step 1: Read the title (5 seconds)
Step 2: Skim (2-3 minutes)
Step 3: Read the instructions
Step 4: Read the question
Step 5: Scan for the answer
Step 6: Write the answer on the answer sheet
Why skim?
Skimming is the most important step because if you can skim well (under 3 minutes and understand the main points of the reading) you will be able to find the answers more easily later.
You skim to scan faster later. That’s the whole reason it is important.
Skimming is like making a map in your mind of the reading. Then you just follow the directions (the questions) to the destination (the answers).
The most important part of skimming is the time.
This means if it takes you 5 minutes to skim you may have forgotten the beginning of the reading when you start reading the questions. It won’t be in your short-term memory anymore!
But if it only took you 3 minute to skim, then the beginning of the reading will still be in your short-term memory and when you see the question you will be able to quickly identify where the answer is.
Then you should read very slowly to make sure you get the correct answer.
So that’s what you need to do in order to improve quickly for the reading test – use practice tests to get better at skimming!
Now it’s your turn! Put your answers in the comments.
Help out other people in the HowtodoIELTS.com community by putting a link to an interesting article for skimming in the comments section below
The IELTS reading test is designed to test, not improve, your reading. One common mistake that many of my students make is trying to use practice tests to improve their reading skills.
Doing an IELTS practice test is mainly just going to test your reading skills, just like with listening.
It does not improve your reading very well. In the long-term, it does. Over years and years it will work but it is a slow way to improve.
And because IELTS readings are very boring you will probably lose motivation over time.
The other option is to develop your reading using these 4 keys: read a short passage, read it more than once, do different activities when reading, and take great notes.
Dave
The Keys
Key #1: Read a short passage
Don’t use a full practice test! Instead, read a single passage in a reading test or find a more interesting article online in the news or another page you like.
Some suggestions to find interesting readings are:
Key #2: Read it more than once
The reason why you should read something short is so that you can read it more than once.
A whole book or a whole reading test is too long!
And the reasons why reading something again and again improve (not tests) your reading is: you review the same words and improve the same skills.
That’s the whole reason why you should read something more than once to improve your reading.
Key #3: Do different activities when reading
In order to improve your reading skills you have to read in different ways.
One example of this is reading for gist or skimming. This means to read quickly for the main idea.
Practice this one skill again and again and again until you get better at it.
Key #4: Take great notes
In my experience, one of the main differences between passive and active learners is the quality of their notes.
Some students don’t take good notes and expect to learn English just from sitting in the classroom. This won’t work.
Other students take pride in keeping beautiful, detailed notes and reviewing them.
Which kind of student do you want to be?
When it comes to reading, vocabulary is king. And when it comes to vocabulary, the vocabulary notebook is king.
Simple Reading Activities
Here are 10 simple reading activities designed to focus on improving different reading skills that you can practice:
1. Read and write down the keywords in your notebook. Go back after and try to remember what each word means.
2. Read quickly and write down a 1 sentence summary after you finish. Then read again and add another sentence.
3. Read half a sentence and try to write the second half before you read it. Change it up and read the second half of a sentence and try to figure out the first half.
4. Write down all the keywords in a paragraph. Try to use the keywords to rewrite the whole paragraph.
5. Read the first and last paragraph of a reading. Write down what you think is in the other paragraphs then read and check.
6. Read the tapescript of a listening test. Then listen to it without the tapescript and try to remember the words you read.
7. Write down all the words in a sentence you don’t understand. Try writing a new sentence with the words before you understand what the word means. Then look up the word in a dictionary and correct your sentence.
8. Read and draw a picture of what the reading is about (or make a mind map).
9. Write down the question words ‘Where,’ ‘When,’ ‘Why,’ ‘Who,’ ‘How,’ and ‘What’ and try to answer while you read.
10. Write down all the proper names in a reading before you read it. Then read it quickly and fill in why each name is important (you can also write down dates and numbers).
For all of the ideas above you should read multiple times – that’s how you improve!
Do this at least once a day and I promise your reading will improve more quickly than any other method.
Now it’s your turn! Put your answers in the comments.
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