IELTS Advice: why many teachers get it wrong

In yesterday's lesson I asked why teachers often give students the wrong advice about IELTS writing. This can happen even with teachers who are generally very good at teaching English.

In my experience, the reason is simple:

Many teachers have been trained to teach academic writing for university, but they haven't had any specific IELTS training. IELTS writing follows a few different rules compared to university writing, and teachers aren't always aware of the differences. Maybe we need a list of these differences; can you think of any?

Comments

[Junaid]

1) You can use phrases like "I believe".
2) You can state your opinion, and provide examples from your own experience. Sometimes, this is required by the question.
3) You don't need a thesis.
4) You can use the "firstly, secondly, finally" structure to cover the topics required by the question

[Binh]

A list of differences from academic writing is
- writing the abstract, introduction
- writing the literature review
- writing the discussion & findings
Whereas IELTS Writing Task 1 is just a report or summary; Task 2 is an essay of argumentation.

[misha]

I think it all about to persuade the exeminer about your own opinion ..in ielts

while in academic writing..we really need to wrote like author

[Otabek]

I think in academic writing for IELTS, you do not have to always follow the structure introduction, main body and conclusion, it should be one's own consideration to create anwer structure for the task each time and mainly focuc on task response.

[Greta]

Dear Sir,

I got the results for academic module.

Listening - 8.5
Reading - 8.5
Writing -7
Speaking -7
Overall - 8

I must thank you and your website. I followed your blog everyday and it helped me a lot.

Keep up your work sir..

[harjeet]

Can we put any alphabet in bracket if we get confuse like centre (s), fruit (s)

[Nancy Lee]

Dear Sir,
There is a writing task recently:
The increase in the production of consumer goods results in damage to the natural enviroment. What are the causes of this? What can be done to solve this problem?

The following is my plan for this task:
1. Introduction
2. Cause: Overuse of natural reasureces
Construction of factories
Waste disposal not properly dealt with
3. Method: Impose green tax
Regulations should be set up
4.Conclusion

I want to know if the content of my plan is suitable for such a task, or what is your suggestion for such a topic?

Thank you very much and hope for your reply.

[Sait Aydin]

in an academic writing;
- all the arguments have to be backed up with reasoning facts (science-engineering) or the results obtained by the students( social departments)
-the structure is to be fallowed as expected, i.e., the uni regulations .....
- the contributions part of the writing attract more attention than the rest
- it flows from generic but corresponding ideas to the specific point that the author would like to emphasize
...........

as for IELTS writing part
--- there is no generic structure
--- rather than logical flows, the most important thing is to be able to express himself in an appropriate language
--- arguments can be weak or entirely personal. this is not the point as long as the student can show the ability that he/she has in language
--- using high level academic language might affect the mark given but it is not crucial part as the examiner would scrutinize the piece of work based on the capability of using language in the context.

Just some differences as you asked, of course, they have so much in common from my perspective.

[Sam]

Cambridge IELTS books provide writing samples from band 4 to examiner answers. None of these samples has included any personal experience to support ideas and reasons. Could you explain this to us？

[""]

Dear Simon

First of all, thank you for the information on this site; I have learned more about what writing examiners are looking for from here than from any other source.

I have taught IELTS on and off for over 15 years; but no longer. I was quite dicombobulated as to what was required. Since the paper is specifically called "academic" I assumed they wanted something similar to academic writing and that the lexis on the "Academic word list" (available on the Victoria University website) would be paramount. I guess I was wrong in that.

After all, in this country IELTS 7 or equivalent is required to register for most professions (teaching,pharmacist,et cetera).

I do find the public version of the IELTS writing band descriptors hard to fathom. (We would go over the criteria in class.) Specifically, "less common" and "uncommon" do not have their normal, common or garden meaning in context. I assumed that by taking the most common academic lexis I was right on target. Now am I to understand that I must guess which lexis items examiners would not expect learners to know? How am I to read the examiners' minds?

Most local language schools will now only appoint IELTS examiners to teach IELTS. So it has become a secretive little club.

I would teach my students to mark the answers provided in various books (incl Cambridge) and see if they could come up with the same score as the examiner based on the public marking schema. Results were inconsistent. The schema is inadequate.

For example: GRA level 8 "the majority of sentences are error-free"
GRA level 7 "frequent error-free sentences"

Question: if "the majority" means more than 50%,
what percentage does "frequent" mean?

I found "vast majority" equated to 85% by Stanford University, but that does not help much.

Once again thank you for all your efforts and all the information on this site. Please keep up the good work!

Best Regards

Jayles

[hoang]

hi I am looking forward to your list of comparative points btw ielts and academic writing. Though we know ielts is academic. If you could provide some source of reference abt that, it would be great. Thks