3 General IELTS Tips ELTP TV
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Hello and welcome. Welcome to my classroom.
I'm Professor Winn, author of the englishlanguagetestprep.com blog.
Welcome today to our third episode of ELTP Television. That's English Language Test Prep Television.
We have a podcast every Tuesday and Thursday with test tips on Tuesday and vocabulary tips on Thursday to help you prepare for the highest score possible on the TOEFL, TOEIC, or IELTS exam.
Today we feature in Episode 3 of English Language Test Prep Television : three tips to help you on the General IELTS exam.
As you know, if you are already studying the General IELTS or planning to take the General IELTS, this is usually used for immigration or to get a job even more likely, in a British Commonwealth country like Canada, Australia, or maybe even Britain itself.
In my own experience, I have prepared students who have gone from Brazil and Colombia to Australia as well as Canada.
So we have these three tips today.
Let's go ahead and get started with our presentation today so that you can improve your English or your study skills.
And you're better prepared to take the exam and get the highest score that you seek and deserve.
And as my own teaching philosophy goes, take the test only once and move on with your dreams.
So let's go ahead and get started with the presentation today.
So for today, we have these three tips for you for the IELTS General exam.
Number 1: Some punctuation rules. We're gonna take a look at two examples.
Number 2:, Practice good word, stress.
And finally, Number 3: choose the correct tone of the letter.
As you know, in Writing Task 1 of the IELTS General exam, you have to write a letter and part of the difficulty that candidates have is the correct tone of that letter.
That's what we're gonna look at right now.
So let's go ahead and get started with our first tip about the punctuation rules.
Now when I'm grading my own students' papers, it's so frustrating sometimes.
Well, our first rule to help you out, be sure to end your sentence with a period.
So many times I see students who don't end their sentences with periods.
You always want to proofread your work, right, before you submit it to the teacher or to the IELTS officials when you're taking the exam.
You wanna make sure that you proofread your papers for any mistakes:
grammar mistakes, vocabulary mistakes, and something that most candidates sometimes forget - punctuation mistakes as well.
Bad punctuation can affect your coherence and cohesion score on the writing test of the IELTS General.
So be careful about that.
Especially from my experience when I was in Latin America, candidates often wrote with commas and not periods when in the Spanish language or in the Portuguese language.
They also, of course, use periods to end their sentences.
I don't know why for some reason the candidates switch when they get to English and they only write want to write with commas.
Be careful with the commas.
As you can see here in our example coming up we're gonna talk about problems with the comma.
So in our example right now, Peter, threw the ball to Mary. Simple sentence with the period.
And then you would begin the next word in the next sentence with a capital letter.
So make sure that you are putting periods at the end of your sentences.
In our second example, as I said beware of the commas.
Now when you are writing, remember commas are only pauses.
Periods, as they say in British English, the full stop, that's exactly what the period is, a full stop.
So you stop your sentence and start a new sentence with a capital letter.
But with a comma and there's various uses of the commas, which we're not gonna get into our tips of today with that.
But one of the common errors that I see is what we call the comma splice.
As you can see here in our example: Peter threw the ball to Mary, she cried.
Remember commas are not strong enough to hold together a sentence.
There's a couple of ways you can repair this sentence here.
First of all, you can always stop your sentences with the period and start a new sentence with the capital letter
Now, with our example, I don't know. I think, you know, she cried as a very short sentence that comes after the main sentence there, but it is correct to do so.
Another way is what you see here in the example for the correction.
Peter threw the ball to Mary; she cried. Semicolons.
Not a comma, but a semicolon is strong enough to be able to hold together your two sentences.
So instead of using the comma, you can use a semicolon as long as the sentences are related.
And this could be part of your writing style or your writing voice.
In your IELTS General preparation. you of course wanna be practicing your writing.
And if you're not so strong in writing as you practice the writing, then you're gonna be able to develop your own style of writing.
And this could be something that you express on the IELTS General test.
And this is gonna help you to do well in Writing Task 2, which is the essay, and perhaps what we're gonna talk about a little bit later, Writing Task 1 with the letter.
So our first tip for today: beware of the rules for punctuation so that you have solid punctuation in your sentences.
And that's gonna help build your score for coherence and cohesion.
And that's gonna help you to get a higher score on the test.
And that's what we're all here for.
Doing a podcast, doing a video, writing blog posts on my blog, englishlanguagetestprep.com.
For all the knowledge that I have to try to get you to be able to get that high score that you seek and deserve.
And especially if you're taking the IELTS General exam you're probably more work oriented than those taking the Academic IELTS , which is mainly for college.
And as I said, I've worked with candidates with both Academic and General IELTS and helped them to reach their dream where they could go, as I said, to either work in Australia or Canada. It's possible with some of these tips that we're going over today.
So let's go ahead and roll onto our second tip for today: good word, stress.
Now, this is an important part of pronunciation, which is of course a criteria for the speaking score on the IELTS.
Let's go ahead and take a look at our tip for today.
It's actually in two parts.
So first, remember word stress.
Every word has stress, even if it only has one syllable. Go to a dictionary.
I would suggest maybe Merriam Webster, that's m-w.com for American English.
And you can look up the pronunciation of a word. Even today, it's much easier to learn a language. You can actually just go and click the icon and listen to the word. It makes English studies, so helpful. So consider that.
Become friends with an online dictionary.
And that's gonna help you to be able to improve your pronunciation and your word stress of certain words in the language you may have difficulty with.
So a general rule for word stress in English, and we have to be careful with our rules in English, as you know.
Rules are meant to be broken sometimes in the English language.
If you have a two syllable word and that word is a either a noun, an adjective, or an adverb then you want to stress the first syllable of the two-syllable word.
All right, so let's look at our examples here.
We have lobster. Notice the accent on "lob."
Pretty. And slowly.
So we have an example of a noun, an adjective, an adverb. Notice that the accent falls on the first part of the word.
So if you would go to an online dictionary and looked up lobster, for example, you would see the accent mark on the first part of the word.
So this is a easy but general rule to help you with two syllable words in English.
Before we go onto the second part of tip number two, I just wanna remind you that I do have an email blog for General IELTS.
And you can go to bit.ly/ieltsgt and sign up to get started.
And every, probably about a couple of times a week you get a new resource or tip that's gonna help you to do well on the big exam day.
That's bit.ly/ieltsgt to go ahead and get started signing up for the IELTS General email blog.
Now back to our tip -the second part of tip number two, and that is the stress for verbs that are two syllables.
The stress that for verbs that are two syllables, lands on the second syllable of the word.
For example, surpass purchase embrace.
Surpass purchase. Embrace.
Notice that the accent falls on the second part of the word when you have a verb, that's a two syllable word.
So we looked over adjectives, nouns and adverbs where the accent falls on the first part of a 2-syllable word.
And for verbs, it falls on the last part.
All right, let's move on to the letter - Tip #3 - the letter's tone.
Again, working with, my own candidates. I've been preparing students for over 12 years now for TOEFL, IELTS, and TOEIC success.
When I'm working with students who are taking the IELTS General test, wow it's usually the letter that really seems to be difficult for people.
Of course in our modern world today of social media and emojis and, our icons and 240 characters on Twitter and such - wowwriting a letter seems so dated, right?
Seems like so out of date.
But for the IELTS General exam, you need to write a letter in Writing Task 1.
Now the letter.
Part of the difficulty in writing a letter besides knowing how to write a letter is really how to start and what approach you're going to take on exam day when you get the writing prompt.
Of course, we do not know what the prompt is going to say and as I said, the decision to make on exam is the tone of the letter.
Is it going to be an informal tone where you would write your friends or maybe your classmates?
There's sometimes examples of you're going to visit a friend in their country or in their city and you have to write and ask for advice.
Or maybe you are trying to get in contact with a classmate over the summer for vacation plans, for example.
For that, you would want to use the informal tone of writing a letter.
A little bit more formal would be what I call semi formal.
And there are scenarios, writing prompts on the General test where you may have to write a letter to the landlord.
Either you're complaining about the neighbors and their loud music.
Maybe there's a flood in your apartment or the refrigerator isn't working.
Then you would write your landlord.
And you're probably on a pretty good basis with the landlord, but you know, you're not friends.
So it would be semi formal.
And lastly, formal.
There are scenarios on the IELTS Writing task where you have to send an application for a job or you're applying for a different job.
Or perhaps you are writing a letter of resignation to the boss for whatever reason.
Or you're resigning from the company.
That would be a more formal letter.
So not only are you gonna have formal language or informal language, or semi-formal language.
That's one of the one of the decisions you need to make when you're taking the IELTS General test.
But you also are going to be able need to also have different greetings or endings to your letter as well and the type of words you're using in your letter.
So the Writing Task 1 for IELTS General can be complex, but with adequate preparation, you should be able to do okay.
As long as you realize that one of the biggest decisions you're gonna make with Writing Task 1 on the IELTS General test is the tone of the letter.
And now you know how to approach the tone of the letter.
So good luck in studying for the IELTS General test and writing now that you know these three types of tones that you can take on the exam depending on what the scenario is that they give you on the exam day.
All right, so let's recap what we've talked about already today.
So if you're taking the IELTS General exam, make sure that you start, I would say at least probably three months ahead of time. That's usually the general advice I give for students. You'll have time to practice your writing.
Practice good pronunciation, intonation and rhythm. And pronunciation is one of the criteria for the IELTS speaking test.
Okay, so #1, let's recap today. Know the punctuation rules.
End your sentence with the period.
Commas. Don't put them between sentences.
Use a semicolon or just use another period and start the next sentence with a capital letter.
#2 Practice good word, stress.
As we talked about the pronunciation rules for adverbs, adjectives, and nouns that are two syllables, the accent is on the first part of the word.
And for two syllable verbs. The accent is gonna be on the last part of the word.
And finally, #3 which we spend a little bit more time on, but writing is a little bit more complex, so it, we need to spend time on that.
Choose the correct tone of your letter.
All right, so before we go here one more time, if you are studying for the IELTS General, and since you're here at the webinar, I suspect you are.
I encourage you to sign up for my email blog at bit.ly/ieltsgt and get started today.
You get about a couple of emails per week with resources and tips to help you to improve both your English skills and your IELTS General skills before the big exam day.
So thank you very much for being with me today. I really do appreciate it.
For our third video from English Language Test Prep TV, where on Wednesdays we go over a test tip.
And Thursdays we're going over a vocabulary tip so that you are better prepared for the exam and you receive the score that you're looking for.
Thanks again. I'm Professor Winn.
Please visit the blog at englishlanguagetestprep.com and I'll see you in the next video.
General IELTS Tips ELTP TV englishlanguagetestprep.com