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!

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!

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....

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!

A minimalist IELTS revision folder

There are many difficult things about the IELTS exam (and most other English exams), but I think the most difficult thing is its vast scope - you could spend the next ten years revising for the exam and still get a completely unexpected essay question or speaking topic.  

This means that you are likely to end up with a huge folder full of handouts from your teacher, essays you have written and things you have written down in class.  When you look at this huge folder shortly before the exam you might feel depressed, and just not know where to start.  

The answer is to make a revision folder which contains ONLY the most useful information you have collected, and really focus on learning that.  

• Find a folder or notebook.  It doesn't have to be beautiful, but it needs to be empty, and big enough to put in some A4 sheets - maybe folded in half.  At MVC we use ugly brown folders which we pinched from the office, but they do the job.  You can even make your own folder - just get sheets of A4 paper with holes punched in them (or plastic pockets) and tie them all together, maybe with some cardboard at each end to make it stronger.  When I was revising for my Trinity Diploma exam (I feel slightly ill remembering how stressful that was!) I used a very cheap 'display book' (Google it!).

• Get all your 'regular' notebooks and folders - everything which your teacher has given you or you have found yourself - and go through them very carefully, choosing ONLY the information which you think is absolutely essential for you to learn.  If you have a whole handout which is really useful, put the whole thing in your notebook or folder - if your're using a notebook you need to glue or staple it so it won't fall out and get lost.  If only part of the handout is useful, either cut it up and just put the useful bit in your notebook or folder, or copy it out into the notebook or onto a new sheet of paper to put in the folder.  I've been getting my students to put things like vocabulary handouts in their folder, useful phrases for the Speaking test and ideas for essays.

• If you use a coursebook in your class (we don't), go through the book and find any useful tips or lists of good phrases.  Copy them out (or photocopy them) and put them in your folder.  

• Don't let your folder get too big or too heavy.  Why?  Because the idea is that you actually carry the thing around with you and look at it over and over again - in your breaks at work, while you're on the bus, while you're waiting for your dinner to cook....  

• Keep adding to it - but ONLY really, really useful stuff. Highlight the most important stuff.  Test yourself, and keep trying until you get things right.

• If you are a creative person, or someone who is very 'visual' in their learning style, try to make your folder colourful - you could draw pictures to help you remember vocabulary, use different coloured pens or highlighters, or use different coloured paper for the things you write out yourself.  

• Keep adding to it right up to the exam, and take out anything you feel you no longer need - you might have learnt it, or found a better handout - as you don't want it to get too unmanageable.

My students' folders are very different from each other - and that doesn't matter.   The most important thing is that they contain just enough information to help them revise, without leaving them feeling overwhelmed.  

Do you have any revision tips or strategies?

Zen and the art of IELTS preparation

I'm feeling philosophical today.  My group of IELTS students haven't got many more lessons before they do the exam, and I had a scary moment today when I felt that there was not enough time to teach them everything I wanted them to learn.  As I was walking home I had to tell myself firmly that there is NEVER enough time to do everything - in our work, study, social or home lives - and we always need to prioritise and do our best to make the most of the time we have left.

If you are doing IELTS and have a few days or weeks before the exam, why not try these ideas:

• Make a revision folder: put ONLY your most useful handouts in a folder and carry it around with you everywhere!  Read it, highlight important bits, test yourself - but look at it at least once a day.  I'll write more about revision folders tomorrow.  

• Get to know IELTS Simon -  http://ielts-simon.com/.  He writes short daily lessons on his blog, and you won't find better information in any book.  It's also completely free.  If you carefully read and think about his lesson every day from now until the exam, I am absolutely sure that you will increase your IELTS score in each of the four skills - his advice and ideas are sensible and easy to understand.    And the main thing is....  he's not just a great teacher - he used to be an IELTS examiner.

• Start talking to native speakers.  If you don't know any, and especially if you live in a place where there are no native speakers of English around, get talking to people on the Internet!  It doesn't matter what you talk about or how many mistakes you make - just get talking.  Your confidence and fluency will improve dramatically, even if the people you talk to don't correct your mistakes.  To those of my students who spend all their time with people who speak the same language and who rarely speak English outside the classroom - really make the effort to get to know another student with a different mother tongue.  Invite them to come along when you go out with your friends - you will have to speak English then!

If time is really, really short:

• Focus on the personal.  Now is not the time to suddenly start learning all about nuclear power - but you can have a think about the things relating to your own life.  This is a fantastic post from IELTS Simon on exactly this topic:  http://ielts-simon.com/ielts-help-and-english-pr/2012/02/ielts-speaking-part-2-essential-preparation.html  

• Find something light and enjoyable to read in English - maybe a magazine or a website about something your really enjoy.  As you read, you are refreshing your knowledge of all sorts of vocabulary and grammar without getting stressed out about it, and it really will help you when you face the exam questions.

• Finally, try to relax.  All we can do is our best, and it is never too late to make a difference to how we perform in a challenging task - even if we know we should have done more to prepare for the exam, we can at least try to develop a positive attitude, which will probably make us perform better than we would have done if we were feeling pessimistic.  The earth will not stop turning if you don't get the score you hoped for - most of the time you get another chance, but if you don't, who knows?  Plan B may turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you!  And if you don't know what I mean by Plan B, here's the explanation:  http://www.idiomeanings.com/idioms/plan-b/ .

Teachers and students out there - do you have any good last-minute advice?  Let me know....