Things I wish I'd known when I first went to study abroad

In my previous post here, I talked about my recent visit to St Johann im Pongau, the village in Austria where I spent my year abroad as part of my German degree.  It's not surprising that this visit has triggered a flood of memories not only about that time but also about other trips I made to German-speaking countries in an effort to learn German.

Although I had some wonderful experiences, and my time abroad most definitely did help me with my German, I do feel that I missed a few opportunities and that there are some things I wish I'd known, especially at the beginning of the year in St Johann.  Maybe some of these things will help you if you are studying a long way from home.

1. Homesickness is awful, but it's a natural part of adapting to life in a new country.  It's one aspect of culture shock, and if I experienced terrible culture shock living in another European country, I can't imagine how hard it must be for people coming to the UK from China or other distant countries.  What I wish I'd know is that it would pass, and in my case it would have passed much more quickly if I had known that the cure for homesickness is to.... 
2. Get out of your room and do things!  Even now, I still have a tendency to hide away at home if I'm feeling bad, although I know that mixing with people always makes me feel better.  When I first went to Austria several people at the school where I worked were nice and welcoming, but I was very shy and I didn't really show how much I wanted to make friends.  In those days we didn't have the Internet, and phone calls were really expensive, so I spent hours and hours and hours writing letters to friends and family at home.  It would have been a much better idea to get out and about. If you're part of a class of students, like my new group of students at INTO Manchester, make the most of any activities organised by the college.  If you're feeling great, try to notice anyone in your class who seems homesick or lonely,  and be friendly to them. Maybe you will feel homesick at some point, and a person who has already been through it and is feeling better will be happy to help you the way you helped them. 
3. Make new friends who don't speak your language.  It's natural when you are homesick to want to spend time with people from your own culture, and I would never say that you should avoid them altogether.  However, don't spend all your time with them.  I spent nearly all my weekends visiting English people in other parts of Austria, and by doing that I missed out on opportunities to do things with Austrians, get to know them better - and practise my German. Before I went to Austria, I was one of the best students in my year at university, but when I got back I was nowhere near the top of my class, especially in Speaking.  The people who had made lots of German and Austrian friends were way, way ahead of me.  If possible, fall in love with a native speaker!  One of my Chinese classmates on my Master's degree course had a British boyfriend - her English really improved very quickly indeed.
4. Even if you don't have much money, spend as much as you can on experiences you will never forget.  For me, I should have had skiing lessons the minute the first snow arrived.  A friend from my aerobics class tried to teach me to ski, but she wasn't a skiing teacher and she found it hard to understand why I couldn't do it!  I should have invested some money in proper lessons, and then I could have joined the other teachers at school who went skiing every weekend all through the winter. That doesn't really apply to my students in Manchester, but I would still say this: don't spend all your money on clothes and electronics - you can have all those things later in your life - spend your money on experiences - meals with friends, music concerts, films, sports and, most importantly of all, travel.  I did travel quite a lot when I lived in Austria, but not nearly enough - partly because I didn't always have someone to travel with.  I didn't realise that lots and lots of people have amazing journeys on their own - in fact, you are more likely to make new friends if you are travelling alone.  I was so happy when one of my new INTO students emailed me this week asking for advice about travelling while he is here - one of his friends had told him that he should take the opportunity to do this before he gets too busy with his studies, and this is absolutely right.  

One day you will wake up and find that you are 30, or 40, or 50 (yes, honestly, one day you will be this old...) and you will probably have so many responsibilities - a demanding job, a home to pay for and clean, children to bring up and provide for.  It would be terrible to have regrets about not having made the most of your freedom while you had it!

To my new class at INTO: you will never have a better chance to become really, really good at English.  Most of you are Chinese, and I understand how easy it is for you to stick together.  However, there are lots of people at INTO and other colleges in Manchester who are not from China, and they would love to make friends with you. Don't miss this chance to really broaden your horizons.

Have a great weekend :-)

Burnout - what it is and what to do about it

I can't believe it's already 8 June - and I haven't written a word on this blog since 24 May.  I've been up to my eyes in planning, marking, teaching and training, and I've hardly noticed the days passing.  I've always had trouble sleeping, but it's not been a problem during the last two weeks - in fact, I've fallen asleep relatively easily every night.  However... I've been so tired every day.  I feel like my iPhone battery - I run out of energy in no time at all.

This morning I was talking to T, one of my INTO students.  He's got an incredibly tough week of exams ahead of him next week, and he told me that the last day or two he has been completely wiped out, unable to do anything at all.  I can really relate to that, as I'm rapidly getting to the point where I'm just not able to focus on anything long enough to achieve the things I need to achieve.  I'm pretty sure that not only T and I, but also many of my other students, are suffering from the early stages of 'burnout'.

A psychologist called Maslach defines 'burnout' as a syndrome with the symptoms of exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy (that's how I'm feeling right now), and identifies 'engagement' as the opposite of this, characterised by the much more positive qualities of energy, involvement and efficacy (that's how I normally feel about my life and work).  I got this information from Wikipedia, but I'm too exhausted to give you the proper reference, and in any case it's not a reliable academic source ;-)

I think I have got this way from the sheer volume of work I'm doing at the moment, combined with possibly not taking good enough care of myself.  I've been too busy to shop for and cook good food, my apartment is a mess, and I've not been finding the time to relax and just do nothing.

I've got another two weeks before my holiday and my heavy workload is going to get even heavier next week.  From past experience I know that I'm at risk of catching a cold/flu/stomach bug and that could ruin my trip to Munich.  Many of my students have also got various types of exams and important essay deadlines over the next couple of weeks, and we all need to find ways to rediscover our energy, involvement and efficacy.

I've found a great website which gives some helpful advice about how to recover from burnout, and you can read all about it here.  If you're too tired to read it now, I'll sum it up for you: 

1. Slow down.  Cut back whatever commitments and activities you can.  Give yourself time to rest, reflect, and heal.    I've just gone through my to-do list on my phone, and deleted quite a few things.  After I finish this, I'm going to do absolutely nothing for the rest of the evening, and only what is absolutely essential over the weekend.  Not easy when you're a perfectionist!  If you're struggling with your studies, try to focus on the essentials - throw away your revision plan if you can't cope with it and it's making you panic.  If you really can't afford to have the weekend off, use the timer on your phone to really, really focus on your studies for 15 minutes, and then do something to relax for 15 or 30 minutes.  You can do a lot in 15 minutes when you know that you can switch off your mind after that.  Repeat the 15 minutes of study if you can - and the 15 or 30 minutes of rest.  When you know that you're not taking in anything more, go for a walk, listen to music or chat to a friend - for real or online.  Get enough sleep, good food and some fresh air every day.
2. Get support.  I'm lucky that my husband is happy to do anything he can to help when I get like this.  I always feel like I should be able to do everything, but I have to admit that I just can't.  If you're an international student away from your family and your closest friends, you may be short of people to turn to.  Try to tell somebody that you are not coping - someone you live with, or maybe one of your teachers.  Don't be afraid to admit that you need some support.  
3. Reevaluate your goals and priorities.  I know that my most important work goal has always been to feel like I am the best teacher I can possibly be - the problem with that is that it combines with my perfectionism to make me never satisfied!  I know that I'm a much better teacher when I'm not worn out, so maybe I need to change my goal to something more like this: to be a good, happy and relaxed teacher who is still learning and not afraid to make mistakes. That feels like a kinder and more realistic goal.  If you're doing IELTS, or something equally stressful, try to remember that there are many paths through life which will bring you happiness.  You may feel like everything will fall apart if you don't get the score you need, but who knows?  Maybe Plan B will turn out to be even better than Plan A.

And now I'm off to sit next to my husband on the sofa (with the cup of coffee he has just made for me) and watch TV.

See you soon!

Getting ready for the IELTS Speaking test

My fantastic and super-intelligent student M is worried about her forthcoming IELTS Speaking test, so today we spent three whole hours working on preparing for Part 2.  I printed out a collection of speaking tasks which I found here.  We picked out the tasks which looked most difficult and she just worked so hard, ploughing through them one after another.  

What really struck me was how much better she did when she was talking about something she felt genuinely enthusiastic about.  There's absolutely no reason why you have to tell the truth in the exam - the examiner will neither know nor care whether you really use the bus instead of your car to help the environment - but when you are inventing things which are not true for you, and doing this under extreme pressure, it's very easy for your language and ideas to be very general.  We have a great word in English to describe something which isn't absolutely terrible but is a bit bland and boring: wishy-washy.  I came to the conclusion that when you are talking about something you have no real feelings about, you can end up sounding a bit wishy-washy, and getting a wishy-washy score.

Do yourself a favour: print or write out as many examples of Part 2 tasks as you possibly can NOW, and spend as long as it takes to think up an interesting answer to every single one.  If you really have to lie, that's fine, but make it an interesting lie, complete with interesting and believable details.  Go through your vocabulary book and  your Ideas Book and make a note of  useful vocabulary for the task - in particular phrases - which will show the examiner what you are capable of.  

As always, don't forget to look at the superb free lessons provided every day by IELTS-Simon (no, he doesn't pay me to say this!) - his blog posts about speaking are here. There isn't a better IELTS resource anywhere.

The other thing you absolutely MUST do is work with a timer - on your mobile phone? - to practise making notes for a minute, then speaking for between one and two minutes (aim for two).  If you can bear it, record yourself and listen to the recording.  Can you hear any errors?  Is there any hesitation or repetition?  Try working with a friend and see if you can spot each other's mistakes.  You might think it's not much fun, but you'll be so glad you invested this effort if you get the score you need.

Of course it's always possible that you will get a Part 2 task that you couldn't possibly have anticipated, but the more you practise quick thinking and rapid planning, the better prepared you will be to cope in that situation.

How to improve your score in the IELTS Writing test

Many of the students I work with are looking for the one key to getting a high score in the IELTS Writing exam.  The fact is, there's isn't one single factor which will guarantee you get the score you need, but there are a few do's and don'ts which are worth remembering.

While you are preparing for the exam: 

• Do focus on making your language easy to understand.  If your teacher is always writing question marks on your essay, you are not making your meaning clear.  If the examiner does not understand what you are trying to say, you have failed to communicate your message and you cannot get the high score you are hoping for.  
• Don't get obsessed with linking words and phrases.  Of course you do need to use these effectively in order to get a high score, but you won't get a higher score by using unusual or obscure words and phrases.  You definitely won't get a high score if you put them in the wrong place. Learn to use a small range of linking devices correctly.
• Instead, do work on developing a really wide range of ideas and opinions about all the common IELTS topics.  Read the newspapers and your coursebooks, listen to the news, watch YouTube videos and, most important of all, make an ideas book.
• Don't try to memorise long lists of model sentences out of an IELTS book. Of course you need a range of good vocabulary to get a high score, but it's better to find a few good phrases then use them as soon as possible in your writing until you are really familiar with them, and sure that you are using them correctly. Then repeat the process with a few more.  

On the day:

• Do make sure you only spend 20 minutes on Task 1.  You cannot get a good mark overall if you do not spend enough time on Task 2.  
• Don't panic if you don't fully understand the question.  It's not the end of the world.  Read the question carefully several times, and if you really, really don't understand it, don't just give up.  Make the most sensible guess that you can and take the opportunity in the introduction to clarify what you think the question means.  This will make it less confusing for the reader, who will understand where you are coming from.  You will still get some credit if you write a good essay.
• Do jot down your ideas and make a quick plan before you start writing the essay.  A lot of the marks are for how well organised your essay is, and it's very difficult to do this as you are writing.  
• If you do get to the end of your essay and suddenly think of a really, really good idea you should have put in the second paragraph, don't just put it in the conclusion.  Leave a space after the end of the conclusion, write down your great idea, then link it to where it should have gone in the essay by using a long arrow.  

I hope these ideas are useful - good luck with your preparation!

How reading the news can help you to get high scores in IELTS - or just improve your English in general

If you are serious about improving your English, especially if you are preparing for a test like IELTS or one of the Cambridge ESOL exams, you need to be regularly practising your speaking and writing - what we could call output.  But you also need to make sure that you are getting enough input - that you are taking in enough  of the right sort of English, through your eyes and ears.  

Although a large part of your exam preparation should be in the form of practice tests, you need more than that. Chatting with friends, both face-to-face and on the internet, is a great way of practising your informal speaking skills, but you need more than that.  Reading about your favourite fashions or sports on websites is an excellent way to improve your reading skills and give you the vocabulary you need to talk with your friends (and the examiner) about your everyday life and the things you love. But you need more than that.

To get really high scores in exams like IELTS, and to pass exams like Cambridge Advanced, you need to know a bit about the world.  Not just your world - you need to know about what goes on in the world as a whole.  I don't mean that you need to know and remember a huge number of specific facts about current affairs.  What you do need is a general understanding of other people's lives and experiences, so that you can talk and write about things of which you have no direct experience.  

I'll give you an example.  If you are reading this, you are a literate, educated person, but to write an essay about the problems of illiteracy you need to be able to imagine what it would be like to have little or no education, to be unable to read and write. It's much easier to write about the less familiar topics if you have got into the habit of thinking about what happens outside your own family and social life. Newspapers, or news websites, are the place to find this type of information.

I'm going to make two suggestions about how to read the news to improve your English (I'll talk about listening another day):

1. If you live in the UK, buy the newspaper called the 'i' every day.  It's only 20p, and is a shortened version of one of the high quality newspapers called the Indpendent.  I know that Metro is free, but the type of English used in Metro isn't as good as the language in the i.  The first two pages are full of very short articles (about 50 words each) on the hot topics of the day from around the world.  If you look through these and read about half of them, you will get lots of new vocabulary and ideas for essays (don't forget to add all your new ideas to your Ideas Book).  If you flick through the next 20 pages or so, you will find lots of longer news articles - and you could pick one or two a day and read them quite closely, making a record of the useful vocabulary and ideas.  After that there's pages about the day's television, fashion, technology, cars - all sorts of different 'general interest' topics.  Then come the business pages, so if you are studying for IELTS with a view to doing a Master's degree in Business, you can make sure that you are aware of all the latest developments.  Finally, there's lots about sport, and some great crosswords and other puzzles.  You don't have to read it all, but commit yourself to spending a certain amount of time on it, and do it regularly.
2. If you don't live in the UK, or don't want to buy the i, do the same but use the internet.  You can use websites by the Guardian or the BBC, or have a look at this website which lists the top ten news websites for English language learners. Read the headlines, and choose one or two articles a day to look at more closely. I do this for my German, using the German version of Yahoo. Sometimes I don't feel like it, but I always enjoy it once I actually start, and it's a good habit which has really helped me.

The most important thing is that you develop a daily routine (or at least a routine you follow on a few set days of the week) and follow it as regularly as you clean your teeth! You can make a real difference even if you only spend half an hour a day.

Ideas for IELTS Speaking and Writing

Students complain a lot about the IELTS exam.  A lot of complaints are about how hard it is to do the Reading test in the time available, but even more people complain about how hard it is to think of ideas for some of the Writing Task 2 essay topics, and the Speaking Part 2 talk.  Without some good ideas, it is very unlikely that you could get a high enough IELTS score to be accepted onto a postgraduate course.

A really good way to overcome this problem is to begin an Ideas Book as soon as you possibly can, and add to it regularly.  You can do this on your computer, in a Word document or Excel spreadsheet, or use a folder or A4 notebook.  

It's very simple - basically, you list all the topics you can think of (especially difficult ones) in your document or spreadsheet, or allocate a whole page to every topic in your notebook or folder.  Then, over a period of time, you write down all sorts of ideas, opinions and useful vocabulary relating to that topic. 

There are lots of different places where you can get ideas.  If you go to an IELTS preparation class, you will certainly do lots of activities which can be a good source of ideas.  Your teacher will probably give you lots of handouts, and you can make a note of anything useful which you talk about in class.

Even if you're working alone, you can still find lots of good ideas, from websites or from the test practice books which you are using. For example, if you do the practice reading test called 'Nature on display in American zoos' from the IELTS Trainer (p140), don't just heave a huge sigh of relief when it's all over and forget all about it as quickly as possible - use some of the ideas from the text for your Ideas Book. In the case of this text, I would add the following to my page entitled 'animals':

Zoos

Goals of zoos: recreation, education, advancement of science, protection of endangered species, captive breeding programmes.

Problems: animal welfare - some zoos in the past did not provide adequate care

Funding: public (municipal funding), private financial support, admission fees

Even this small amount of information (which took me less than five minutes to find and write down) would be enough to help me write a really good essay about whether zoos are a good thing or not.  

Your Ideas Book is also a great place to note down past IELTS questions about the various topics, and your ideas about how to answer them.  Look, for example, at IELTS-Simon's question and suggested answer about a wild animal from your country.  Write out the question and your own answer (or notes) on your 'animals' page.  

If you're studying for the IELTS exam, or any other English exam where you might have to speak or write about a range of topics, why not try an Ideas Book?  Email me if you want any help or advice about this!

IELTS Writing Task 2 and other academic essays: what not to write...

I'm not having the best of days - we just bumped our car into a friend's car and damaged both vehicles - an expensive mistake!  I'm feeling a bit grumpy, so I'm going to blog about some of the things which I think don't sound good in academic writing.  Feel free to disagree with me, as some of them really are a matter of opinion.

1. Don't be over-dramatic.  A lot of students use memorised phrases like 'One of the most controversial topics today is ....' or '..... is hotly debated around the world'.  This is fine for genuinely dramatic topics which really are the subject of heated debate, like perhaps global warming, but if it is something like 'is it a good idea for children to have pets?' then these phrases sound silly.  If you use phrases like this because you don't know what else to put in the introduction, follow the formula taught by IELTS-Simon, to write a fairly general sentence about the topic of the essay, and follow it with another sentence which sums up your whole answer to the question.  Good examples of his techniques are here, here and especially here.
2. Be careful with all sentences memorised from books.  I feel a bit bad writing this, but please be extra careful with books produced by people who are not native or near-native speakers.  One of my lovely Chinese students obviously had her doubts about some Chinese IELTS books she had at home, as she brought them into class and asked me to check if they were suitable for her to study from.  I'm sorry to say that they were FULL of mistakes, and also contained an awful lot of very unusual vocabulary which you really don't need for IELTS (a long list of different precious stones, for example).  Anyway, to get back to my point about what not to write, don't memorise and write things like 'every coin has two sides'.  We just don't use this phrase - we do have the saying 'two sides of the same coin', but that really means the opposite of what people mean when they say 'every coin has two sides'.  You don't need to use phrases like this at all - you need sensible opinions, with good examples, expressed in clear, simple, accurate English, with a few basic linking devices.  That's it!  
3. Avoid 'sweeping statements'.  These are statements where you over-generalise about things which you can't possibly be sure about, especially when they could cause offence to people (remember, examiners are people!).  Always, never and all are dangerous words!  I'm also thinking of things like 'women should stay at home with their children',  'people in the UK do not care about old people' and 'it is immoral to get divorced if you have children'.  I have read all three in essays handed in for me to mark, and they are not acceptable in academic writing.  Don't get me wrong - you are entitled to think whatever you want, but in academic writing you have to express your ideas more carefully, and in particular avoid racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination.  By the way, putting 'in my opinion' before an offensive comment doesn't make it acceptable in academic writing!  
4. Don't use 'he' to refer to people in general.  It is no longer acceptable in academic writing to use language which excludes one half of the population.  It can sound clumsy to always write 'he or she' 'his or her', so the easiest way to avoid sexist language is to make things plural - instead of 'the teacher must encourage his or her students to read widely', just say 'teachers must encourage their students....'  
5. Don't use abbreviations.  You all know this, but it's so easy to forget!  So no 'what's more', 'etc', and 'don't'...  It's not a big thing, but sticking to this rule shows that you understand and respect the conventions of academic writing.
6. Try to avoid mixing up British and American spelling.  In IELTS it's fine to use either, but try to be consistent - all British or all American, rather than a mixture of both.  I must add that some tutors at university have terribly strong feelings about British v American spelling - I personally don't think it matters, as long as you are consistent - so you need to check what the 'rules' are at the university or college where you are studying.

I hope some of these pointers are helpful - you may not think that some of these things matter, but there's no point in annoying the IELTS examiner!  I'll be in a better mood next time I write....

Useful language for IELTS Writing Task 1 - describing trends

Many students - and even some IELTS teachers :-D - find Writing Task 1 of the Academic Module very difficult.  I did too, until I discovered the brilliant IELTS-Simon's advice about how to approach it.  His method is very simple and extremely effective - you can find the relevant part of his website here.  Most other books and websites make the whole matter far too complicated.  

They also give the impression that the only way to get a high score in this part of the test is to use incredibly complicated language, and this is simply not true.  You need to have a relatively small amount of vocabulary at your fingertips - that is, ready to use without having to think too hard about it.  You need to use it in the appropriate places, and you need to use it accurately.  

Perhaps the most useful area of vocabulary to learn for IELTS Writing Task 1 is how to describe trends.  You often have to describe a line graph with several lines moving up and down over a period of time, and there are two easy ways of doing this - the 123 method, and the ABCD method.

Here's the 123 method:

1	2	3
The price  The population The number of ....	decreased fell dropped went down	gradually slowly rapidly quickly slightly somewhat significantly substantially dramatically
	increased rose went up
	remained stayed	the same

To avoid repeating the same type of sentence over and over again, you can also add in some sentences using the ABCD method:

A	B	C	D
There was a	gradual slow rapid slight significant substantial dramatic	decrease fall decline drop increase rise	in price in the population in the number of ...

You don't even need to memorise all of this vocabulary if time is short and you are struggling - the most important thing is to learn a few of these, but learn them thoroughly.  Learn a way of saying that the numbers go up, that the numbers go down and that the numbers stay pretty much the same, plus a couple of adverbs (123 method) and adjectives (ABCD method).  

Learning a few phrases really well, so that you can use them confidently and accurately, will help you focus on the really important part of Task 1 - understanding what the data means, then identifying the most important trends in your general overview paragraph, and describing the trends in more detail in the rest of the report.  

What not to forget on the day of your IELTS exam...

My students at Manchester Victoria College have their IELTS exam tomorrow - good luck!  Here are some of the reminders I gave them today:

• Make sure you know EXACTLY how to get to the IELTS test centre, and assume that the traffic is going to be very heavy (unless you're walking there!).  Plan to get there about an hour before the deadline - you can always have a cup of tea in a coffee shop if you get there quickly, and if the bus is stuck in traffic you won't be stressed.
• Be careful in your choice of clothing - you're not allowed to wear your coat, or a top with pockets.  Wear a few layers so you will feel comfortably warm but can quickly strip off if you overheat!
• If you're doing the whole exam in one day, bring some food and drinks - you won't know the time of your speaking exam until the day so you don't know how much time you will have to get some lunch.  
• And while we are on the subject of food, try to have some breakfast on the day.  I know that most people don't feel like eating when they are nervous about the exam, but your brain will work better if you give it some food first :-)  If you can't face your normal breakfast, maybe you could have some fruit and yogurt when you arrive at the test centre?
• In the Listening, don't waste time worrying about anything you miss - keep listening and try really hard to keep up with the questions, even if you can't get every answer.  Don't give up in Section 4 - yes, it's difficult, but there are always a few easier questions even in this part of the test.  At the end when you are transferring your answers, be VERY careful to check that you are putting the right answer against the right number on the sheet - I know it sounds insultingly obvious, but many students number their answers incorrectly, purely as a result of exam nerves. Don't leave any of the questions blank - you will get nothing if you write nothing, but a guess may just be right.
• In the Reading, don't panic and start trying out new strategies at this stage - use the techniques you've been practising in class.  Don't forget that each of the three passages has a mixture of easy and difficult questions - if anyone tells you that the whole of passage three is difficult, they are mistaken.  Spend twenty minutes on each of the passages, and transfer your answers to the answer sheet as you go - you don't get any extra time for this at the end of the test.  I personally know three students who got a Reading score of less than 2.0 because they forgot about this on the day, and one of the three tried to quickly carry on writing after the time was up and got into trouble with the invigilator. Again, don't leave any blank spaces on the answer sheet, especially if the questions were multiple choice.
• In the Writing, focus on being clear and as accurate as possible.  If the examiner doesn't understand what you are trying to say, you will not get a great mark.  Don't spend more than 20 minutes on Task 1, and don't forget that students who put in lots and lots of numbers without making comparisons and a summary/overview get low marks.  In Task 2, spend five minutes thinking and planning, and then put most of your effort into the main body paragraphs - your introduction and conclusion only need to be a couple of sentences each - if you run out of ideas try to include examples of what you are talking about.  Use the last few minutes to check for silly mistakes - like missing plurals or third person 's'.
• In the Speaking, smile and make eye contact with the examiner - they are only human, after all!  Don't forget to include the words if and because as these words will make you use more advanced language without even thinking about it.  Don't be afraid to say 'Sorry, I didn't catch that' if you didn't understand the question, and if they ask you a really difficult question you can say 'Hmm, that's a really difficult question'!  

I really hope that the exam will go well for you but if you feel it went badly, don't despair.  Very many people need to take the exam a second or even third time to get the score they need, and if you did very much worse than you expected you could even consider taking some extra lessons... :-D

Last minute IELTS revision

In my last post I talked about getting ready for IELTS when you still have a couple of months ahead of you.  Today I've been working with students who don't have anything like that amount of time available for revision - they are doing their tests within the next ten days.  

If time is getting short, you need to focus your attention very carefully on the most essential things.  It goes without saying that all IELTS teachers will have their own ideas about what is essential, but these are the things I think are worth doing in the last few hours of revision time.  

1. Speaking: IELTS-Simon quite rightly says that most of your focus should be on preparing for the second part of the test, by planning ideas and language for some of the very common topics - have a look at his advice here and act on it. However, if time is getting REALLY short, and you are down to the last few hours, I suggest that you make sure you are ready for Part 1.  True, it's not where you get the most marks, but it's a good idea to make a strong and confident start to the test, and it's not difficult to work through the typical Part 1 questions and get your answers ready.  If you make a mess of the answer to 'Do you work or are you a student?' it will knock your confidence and make you even more nervous.  There's lots of videos on YouTube which will give you a really good idea of the questions you will face - have a look at this one for a start.  Whatever you do, smile at the examiner, make eye contact with him or her, and don't forget that it's ok to say 'Sorry, I didn't quite catch that.  Could you repeat the question please?'  Finally, remember the magical power of if and because!
2. Reading: Try and find one IELTS Reading passage that you haven't seen before, or if you really can't find one have a look at the 'official' samples here (the downside of this is that the passage only has a few questions, not the normal amount).  In any case, have a go at your chosen passage - time yourself for 20 minutes if you have a proper passage with the 12 or 13 questions  (if you're using the samples don't bother timing yourself), then check your answers.  If you stop here you're wasting a massive opportunity to help yourself - as I said yesterday, the value of the practice tests is that you can learn so much from your mistakes.  What did you get wrong and why?  Is it something that can be quickly fixed - like not having read the questions carefully enough?  Compare the language in the question with the words in the text and remind yourself that the words will be related in meaning, but rarely are the same words in both.
3. Listening: If you still have access to a Listening test you haven't done before, do it - but make sure you use the transcript afterwards to really check where you went wrong.  Otherwise, try and find something interesting to watch in English on television or the internet, using English subtitles if necessary.  It's very important to 'tune in your ear' to English, particularly if you are not living in an English-speaking country and/or are living with people who speak the same mother tongue as you.  Relaxing with a really good film in English is actually quite a good use of your time!
4. Writing: This is where IELTS-Simon is really valuable - his advice is better than anything you'll read in a book.  Learn his Writing Task 1 four paragraph method - paraphrase the question, give an overview of the most important information, then add two paragraphs with some details.  You can find out more information about this here, where he talks you through his thinking process about how to approach a task.  For Task 2, why not think about adopting this quick and simple method for writing introductions and conclusions - a strong start and finish to an essay always make a good impression.  If you have time, read through as many of Simon's plans and sample essays as possible - they will give you lots of good ideas.

Only you can know exactly what your particular strengths and weaknesses are, so some of these things may not apply to you, but maybe some of the ideas will be helpful.  Good luck!

How to get the best out of your practice tests book - plus congratulations to Charline!

In my last post (here) I mentioned how one of the great things about being an English teacher is the huge pleasure I get when one of my students achieves their goals.  Today I was delighted to get an email from Charline in Switzerland who had some lessons with me and some of my fantastic colleagues, and has now passed her BEC exam with flying colours.  It really does make it all worthwhile!  Well done, Charline - you've made my day!

Today I've been thinking about exam practice tests - and in particular IELTS practice tests, as I'm helping a class and some one-to-one students to prepare for IELTS exams.  Lots of students buy books like this one: 

which are really quite expensive, and I feel that many people don't make the best use of the materials.  The most obvious thing to do is to work through the different Listening and Reading tests, checking the answers in the back as you go.  The problem with this is that you may not learn all that much from doing this - and there's a danger that you will get very depressed and demotivated if you don't get as many marks as you hoped.  Another problem with the way people use these books is that many students don't bother doing the Writing or Speaking tests, if they don't have a private teacher to give them a proper IELTS score.

If all that sounds like you, you've fallen into the trap of mixing up 'testing' and 'training'.  Unless you are doing the exam within the next couple of weeks, your focus should most definitely be on 'training', and in some ways you might be better off buying a book which contains more than just practice tests - there are hundreds of them out there, and if you email me I can make some recommendations.

However, let's think about how you can use a book like the one pictured above, to get as much value as possible for your time and money.  I'm going to assume that you have only bought one book of tests, and that you are taking the test in about two months.

1. There's more than one way to skin a cat, as they say.  Don't use all of the tests in the book in the same way - there are several different approaches you can try, and each of them will teach you different things.  With the Listening test, you don't have to do it like in the real exam, hearing it only once.  You can listen to each section again and again before you look at what the answers should be. You can listen once, check your answers, then keep listening until you can actually hear the correct answer.  The transcript at the back of the book is a also fantastic resource - you can read it at various points in the process (with or without the help of your dictionary) - after you've heard the recording once, after you've checked your answers, even before you listen for the first time (this is especially useful for building confidence if your level is lower than about 4.5, or for the difficult Section 4).   Perhaps the most important point of all is that you can use the recording, the questions and answers and the transcript as a source of information - about the topics which come up in IELTS, and about useful vocabulary and phrases which you can use yourself in your own writing and speaking.  Make lots of notes in your notebook.  It's the same with the Reading test - of course you need to do some of the tests with a time limit, especially if you've a tendency to be a slow reader, but you don't have to check the answers immediately - why not change to a different colour pen or pencil and give yourself extra time to see if you can improve your answers?  You'll be able to give yourself one score for the questions you got right in the time limit, and another for your answers that you got with extra time. You can also vary the point at which you allow yourself to look up words in your dictionary - of course we all know you can't use a dictionary in the exam, but you're not in the exam right now!  You're still at the learning stage, and it's fine to use a dictionary (but don't look up every single word or you'll go crazy).
2. Remember that an 'official' IELTS book will help you get into the evil minds (;-D) of the people who write the test.  Don't just do the tests without thinking - don't ever just accept the answer which is given in the back of the book (even if you got it right!) without analysing what the IELTS examiners were testing.  This insight is really, really valuable - even though you won't have time to analyse anything in the exam, you can learn such a lot at this stage.  Can you work out which types of questions you always get wrong? One incredibly useful thing you can do with both the Listening and the Reading tests is to make what IELTS Simon calls a keyword chart - I've adapted this slightly and called it a 'related language chart' (email me if you want an example).  If you do this, you'll see that looking for 'synonyms' is quite tricky - what is a noun in the question might correspond to an adverb in the text, and a lot of students miss this.  If you make at least one or two related language charts you'll start to see how the examiners use the English language to write the questions.  Once you start getting answers right, through careful analysis of how the questions relate to the answers, you are on your way to the score you need.
3. Don't ignore the Speaking and Writing tests - even if you haven't got a teacher who is prepared to give you a score.   You really will benefit from writing out the tasks, even if no one but you will see them, and if you know another learner who is doing IELTS, see if you can have a look at each other's work - it's so much easier to spot someone else's mistakes than your own!  By the way, you shouldn't be trying to memorise anything for the Speaking test - the examiners want to hear natural English and will mark you down if they think you are only coming out with sentences you have learnt by heart - but you can make notes and lists of useful words and phrases, as well as ideas about what to talk about.  
4. Don't write on the book in pen - at least not at this stage!  Ideally, do all your writing in your notebook for now, but if you really prefer to write on the actual pages, get a soft pencil and a really good rubber, so that you can easily rub out anything you write.  If you do that, you can easily use the book again just before the test if you need to.  It's a really good idea to re-do tests you did a few weeks ago - of course you'll probably get a much higher score than you would if you had never seen it before, but it's a great way to reinforce your learning.  

These are just a few thoughts I've had today about how to use the book - I'll add more as time goes on, but I'd love to hear your ideas.  Email me or leave me a comment!

Pronunciation

Pronunciation is really, really important - there's no point in speaking with beautiful grammar and perfect vocabulary if people can't understand what you say!  You don't have to sound like a native speaker - there's nothing wrong with having a Chinese or a Spanish accent! - but you do have to have good enough pronunciation so that other people can understand the words you are saying.

YouTube is a great place to go to help you work on your pronunciation.  I really like 'Jennifer ESL' - she has lots and lots of videos but you could start with this one: 

You can work on this at home, at your own speed, but make a note of anything you don’t understand and ask me in class, or send me a message through this blog and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

Does anyone else know of any good online resources to help learners with pronunciation?

The joy of subtitles

I'm enjoying the last couple of days before I'm back at work after the Easter break, and I was very glad that today was a 'film study day' in the city centre which I had enrolled for.  The film we studied was called 'Good night and good luck', and it was a great film, definitely worth watching.  We had two very good teachers during the day, and they provided lots of interesting information between the different sections of the film over the course of the day.

I was very shocked, however, when I found I really couldn't understand the first 15-minutes of the film.  No, it wasn't in German, Spanish or any other language that I supposedly know.  It was in English - but it was American English, and the acoustics in the room were not great.  I thought I was the only person in the group who couldn't hear the dialogue, or who was not really understanding what was going on. Luckily, other people were also having a problem, and for the rest of the day the film was shown with the English subtitles as well as the audio track.  

What a relief!  It made the film so much more enjoyable, not having to struggle to catch every word which was said.  Of course, I did gradually 'tune in' to the American accent, so by the end I probably wasn't reading the subtitles very much, but it really took the pressure off.

As you know, I really, really recommend that language learners find television programmes which they enjoy, and watch them regularly.  As with reading, it's so important to find programmes which you actually like - although you may feel that you should be watching the news, or documentaries about politics or current affairs, if you don't enjoy them, you won't watch them - or won't watch them regularly enough to benefit from them.  If you are learning English in the UK and enjoy programmes which other people consider to be rubbish, like Britain's Got Talent, or Coronation Street, or Hollyoaks, ignore what anyone else thinks and watch them - but remember to turn on the subtitles (in English, of course), to make the whole experience more enjoyable and less stressful.  It also means that you can see how an unfamiliar word is written, and look it up in the dictionary.

If you don't have a television set, try watching English language movies on your laptop with the subtitles in English - or if you really think that is too hard for you, why not use subtitles in your native language for the first half of the film (until you know the characters, and what is going on), then switch to English for the second half?  

Remember, the most useful language learning strategies are the ones which you actually do - NOT the ones you think you SHOULD do, but never feel in the mood for!  Even if you are studying hard for IELTS or another language exam, you can still enjoy at least some parts of the language learning experience.  

I'd be really interested to hear your recommendations for good TV programmes and films for learners of English - please comment below, or email me: juliaenglish@hotmail.co.uk.

Language learning in Edinburgh!

Steve and I have just got back from our lovely holiday in Edinburgh.  We chose to go there so that we could see the newly-acquired pandas, but didn't realise that we needed to book weeks in advance and couldn't get any tickets....oops.  Luckily, there was a fantastic science festival on, so we went to four different events and had a great time.

However, the highlight of the holiday for me was our visit on Wednesday morning to the Yakety Yak Language Cafe - this is an organisation which arranges friendly and informal language speaking sessions, and Steve found out about the German in Edinburgh here.  We had to get up terribly early and walk an awful long way to get there for 9am, but it was really, really worth it.  It takes place in a German cake shop, and two groups of learners with different levels of German drink delicious coffee and chat in German with a native speaker.  Steve and I were in separate groups and both had a great time - I was very happy indeed to meet a lovely German guy called Christian who has lived in Edinburgh for nine years and works as a nurse as well as being a great German teacher!  I've been really enjoying my German reading and doing lots of it, but hadn't had the chance to talk to a real live German, so I was delighted to find that a lot of the fluency I had lost has come back to me. This proves that, for some types of learners at least, reading really is an easy and painless way to improve speaking, especially when you have forgotten a lot of what you had previously learned.  Why?  Because reading for pleasure in your second language really does remind you of a huge amount of vocabulary which you half know, or almost know, with very, very little effort on your part.  

It takes time to find the right books, magazines or websites - for me it has to be novels - but it's worth taking that time, because it really will make a difference to your vocabulary.  And, as those of us who work with IELTS know only too well, vocabulary, and lots of it, is the key to doing well in language exams - and all other situations when you need to use a foreign language under pressure.

Patience is a virtue - for language learners

Yesterday I wrote a post about overhearing a bad-tempered, impatient English teacher practically bullying a Turkish-speaking student into buying books he didn't want (and maybe couldn't afford), and the experience has got me thinking a great deal about the character traits which are an advantage or a disadvantage when it comes to teaching and learning a language.  Today I want to think about patience, from the perspective of the language learner.

Firstly, learning a language takes time.  Lots of time.  Lots and lots of time.  Even learning enough of a language to visit a country as a tourist does not happen overnight.  Learning enough English to achieve an IELTS score of 7.5 (which some of my students have needed in the past to do certain Master's degrees) takes an awful lot of very hard work, some of it quite tedious.  Many aspects of learning language are great fun, but most people (myself included) do not particularly enjoy doing endless practice exams, over and over again until the exam techniques and strategies have become so automatic that the required score is within our grasp.  You really do need to be patient if day after day you get a disappointing score, and also very determined to keep going and keep trying.  

Secondly, it's very hard to define what it means to 'know' a language, or 'speak' a foreign language.  I have a degree in German, and I am happy to say that I can read pretty much anything in German and know what it means.  There are, however, many things 'wrong' with my German.  For a start, there are several sounds in spoken German that I find very difficult to reproduce, and the result of this is that I have a very noticeably English accent when I speak German.  For another thing, although my 'passive' vocabulary is excellent - I can understand almost everything which is spoken or written - my 'active' vocabulary is horribly limited - I just can't remember enough vocabulary quickly enough to speak with the fluency and accuracy I long for.  But compared to my knowledge of French, Spanish and Italian.... well, my German is brilliant in comparison.    If I compare my knowledge of one language to another language I know, or my language to someone else's ability in that language, I can only make myself miserable.  Language learning is a journey, not a destination.  If you aren't prepared to patiently enjoy the journey, and laugh at your mistakes and forgetfulness, you are in for a disappointing ride.  

Finally, 'learning' a language is not like learning to do many other things.  I remember needing to teach my son how to put on his school tie when he was five years old - although he found it difficult for the first few minutes, within half an hour or so he could knot his tie perfectly, and nineteen years later he can still do it perfectly, even though he now rarely wears a tie.  Most people never forget how to tie a tie, lace their shoes or ride a bike.  It's also true that you never totally forget the language you have learned in the past, but sometimes it gets buried very, very deeply in your memory, to the point that you feel it is totally gone.  However, if you patiently work through some beginners' books, you will find that things start coming back to you - slowly at first, but more quickly as time goes on.  If it took you three years to get to a certain level in the past, you will almost certainly get back to that level in a fraction of the time - but it will come slowly at first.  In an ideal world you would never stop practising your languages, and you would never lose your fluency and accuracy.  In the real world, life moves on and what was your priority one year will be pushed aside the next, often for very good and exciting reasons.  You can do anything you want with the free time available to you, but you can't do everything - there are only so many hours in the day.

So I've stopped fretting about my 'terrible' French, Spanish and Italian, and how much German I've forgotten.  Because Steve and I are planning to be in Berlin for three months in 2013, German has become very important to me again, and I'm really, really enjoying reading novels and an advanced coursebook - now that I've stopped being impatient with myself about how much I've forgotten!

The importance of being patient (and polite)

Steve and I went to London yesterday to see two amazing art exhibitions - one by Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern, and the other by David Hockney at the Royal Academy.  Inbetween the two, we went to the foreign languages bookshop formerly known as Grant and Cutler, which has been swallowed up by Foyles.  I was having a very happy time browsing among the German books and then the IELTS and other English as a Foreign Language books, when something happened to spoil my enjoyment. 

I could not help but overhear a disturbing almost totally one-sided conversation between a middle-aged English teacher and her equally middle-aged Turkish-speaking student.  She spoke to him as though he were a small, annoying child, and the conversation went something like this:

Teacher: Look, this is the book you need.  

Student: Very expensive.

Teacher:  No it's not.  Look, it's only £27.  The one I had to buy was this one with the CDs and that costs £58.  

Student: I not sure.  I ask my friend.

Teacher: No!  The course is finished in three weeks.  You need to buy it today!  And you need a dictionary.

Student: I have dictionary.

Teacher: No you don't.  

Student: In my room.

Teacher: What?  A monolingual one?  No, I think it has Turkish in it too.

Student: Yes! Turkish and English!

Teacher: No, that's no good.  You need one that's only English.  Look, here's one.  It's really cheap - only £10.  

 

Eventually they went to the till, at which point the teacher got the shop assistant to give HER the points on HER Foyles loyalty card, without asking him if this was ok, and she jabbered away at the assistant about this and that during the whole transaction.  They came away from the till, and this is what she then said to the poor guy:

'I can't believe you didn't say 'thank you'!  I've TOLD you in class so many times that you have to say 'Here you are' when you hand over the money, and then 'Thank you' when they give you the book.  I can't believe you haven't learnt that yet - you sounded so rude!'

I was very, very tempted to say something to her, along the lines of 'How can you expect him to say anything at all when you never shut up?  How can you accuse him of being rude when you are so rude to him?  What sort of impression of English teachers will he take back to his home country?'  

In the event, I said nothing, but I felt very sad that a member of my own profession could be so rude and insensitive to a student who seemed like a very humble and polite guy.  

I very much hope that I have never spoken to a student with so little respect and patience.  It has got me thinking about the character qualities needed in language teachers and language learners, and I will return to this subject in my next post.

Final thoughts (for now) about reading and vocabulary

I've now been experimenting for a week with ways of sneakily improving my German vocabulary by reading for pleasure.  I've learnt quite a lot - not just new words and phrases, but also quite a lot about the process of vocabulary learning.  Of course, I can only be sure that what I've learnt applies to me personally - we are all so different in the way we learn, and language teachers have to offer lots of different learning strategies to their students so that everyone eventually finds the way which is best for them.  But, for what it's worth, this is what I've learnt:

• I'm far more motivated to work on my German when I'm combining it with an activity I find really enjoyable - reading murder mysteries.

• I'm far more likely to read in German if I do it in 15 minute chunks rather than sitting down with the intention of doing it all evening.

• I like using a dictionary app on my phone rather than a paper dictionary.  For a start, the app is much more up-to-date than my dictionary and, more importantly, it means I can read on the bus or in bed without having to struggle with an enormous heavy dictionary.

• I like making a list of interesting words and phrases - some of them are new to me, but most are ones which I half-know - perhaps I understand them but wouldn't have been able to use them myself when I'm speaking.

• Although I believed that it was better not to write down English translations of the new words in my little notebook, by the end of the week I had changed that - now I write down the translation if it's not possible to write down a phrase which clearly shows the meaning.  German has lots of compound nouns - where two words join together to give a new meaning - and often I can guess what the meaning is when I see it. Sometimes, however, it just isn't obvious, and I've decided I was not using my common sense to write only the German and then have to look it up again and again. 

• I also like going through my random list of words and making a new list grouped more logically - see here.   

What I've been doing this week is similar to what is called (in the world of language teaching) 'extensive reading' - that is, reading long texts which are not too difficult for the purpose of understanding the whole thing.  The opposite is called 'intensive reading' and is more about reading shorter but more difficult texts - perhaps analysing fragments or seeking the answers to comprehension questions.  There's a good article about it here, if you're interested.

I haven't yet had the chance to try out any of my new vocabulary on a real German (and in any case they might think I was a bit odd if I started talking about post-mortem examinations and obituaries), but I have most definitely built up my confidence as a learner.  I have been pleasantly surprised by how quickly I am able to read my book (after a slower start at the very beginning) and so much of my forgotten vocabulary is coming back to me.  

I would love to hear from other people about their experiences of reading for pleasure in a foreign language.

Language learning, language teaching and identity

I met my friend Eljee for coffee today and we had a really interesting conversation about how we and people we know feel about our ability to speak, understand and teach languages and how it affects our sense of our own identity.  She is doing some very interesting research about English teachers, and you can read about her work on her blog at  http://eljeejavier.com/.

I've spent the afternoon thinking about what a huge role my knowledge of languages plays in my sense of who I am, and how differently I feel about teaching English (where I am an undisputed 'expert' because I am a native speaker) compared to how I feel about teaching German (I have a degree in German and near-perfect command of grammar but would never be mistaken for a native speaker).  

Can a non-native speaker ever feel fully equal to a native speaker in a business or academic situation?  I personally never overcame some nagging insecurities about not being a native speaker of German throughout my fifteen years as a German teacher, although in some ways I was a better German teacher than I am an English teacher.  I was able to fully identify with the struggles my students faced as they learnt German - after all, I had faced and overcome these struggles myself.  As a novice English teacher, I was often at a loss to explain WHY something was grammatically incorrect, and had to fall back on the rather inadequate explanation that it just 'didn't sound English'.  That would never have happened when I was teaching German, as I knew every rule and the exceptions to that rule inside out.  Nevertheless, now that I am a (relatively) experienced English teacher, I am confident with explaining most aspects of grammar and, most important of all for me personally, I never have to worry about my accent or the breadth of my vocabulary, as I did when I was teaching German.  I have a strong and positive sense of my own identity as a 'good teacher'.

Next year my husband and I are planning to spend three months in Berlin - I wonder how I will feel about myself as a speaker of German after that?

I'd be very interested to hear from other language learners and teachers about how they feel their language abilities (and weaknesses) affect their sense of who they are.