For today's reading practice, I thought you might like to read a review of this website. It appeared in the latest issue of the English Australia Journal.
To go straight to the review, click here. I particularly like the reviewer's comments about my IELTS writing lessons in the fourth paragraph!
The review is full of useful English phrases. Note them down if you have time.
A good review for continuing development of an eminently useful learning site.
Here I will recommend some good phrases from Curtin's review, if you all do not mind.
1, to be borne out by sth= to be proved true by sth
2, to be awash with IELTS coursebooks and how-to books= to be full of ...books
3, advice is solid = advice is eminently reliable
4, to be at once both pragmatic and exquisitely copiable
5, give sb ample time to do sth= give sb enough or more than enough time to do sth
Dear Teacher Simon, could you please explain why the reviewer wrote: ...students are somewhat loathe to do all this work. I think that there might be grammar error with " are somewhat loathe".
Thank you so much!
Posted by: Phong Nguyen | June 17, 2019 at 16:47
Hi Simon, that’s a great review! Congrats!
Thankyou for all the ideas and tips and suggestions and techniques you’ve put up on the blog. I use most of your ideas in my class and students who really pay heed, get their required band score at one go!
Yes, it can seem a bit of a jungle with all kinds of information nuggets all over the place as the author of the review says, but, now that I’m a seasoned follower, I can find any info I need from your write ups just like that!
Posted by: Nisha Therasa | June 17, 2019 at 17:18
Hi Simon ... that praise is well deserved. I've been an examiner for 17 years and a teacher of IELTS prep courses for 20 and your site is the only one I can recommend to my students in complete faith. I don't agree with absolutely everything you say, but I wouldn't like to split hairs over 1% (that's what I mean by complete faith)!
I'd just like to say thank you for the great work you've done and are doing - you're an inspiration to both students and teachers alike.
Daniel Sansoni
Posted by: Daniel Sansoni | June 18, 2019 at 05:28
Sir, in fourth paragraph it is written as :
However, when it comes to advice on writing, corcoran inhabits a celestial realm quite by my self.He has an approach that is at once both pragmatic and (dare I say) exquisitely copiable.
His ideas are clear, well structured and eminently learnable for candidates and teachers alike.
Some good vocabulary from this paragraph : Band 8-Band 9 word
inhabits
celestial
realm
pragmatic
exquisitely
eminently
alike
learnable (less common word for me)
copiable.(less common word for me)
From remaining paragraphs :
Straw poll
brainhcild
advice is solid.
nugget of wisdom.
awash
ample time
elegantly
loathe
Posted by: Pachu | June 18, 2019 at 08:09
Hi Simon
Wow!! what a simple but very helpful review this is ! Very encouraging for IELTS taker like me. Thanks Simon for the recommendation .However, I have a bit confusion with '' are loathe'' in the 2nd page of the text. Could you please advise me whether it would be ''are loathed'' or ''are loath''.
Best Regards
Posted by: Sajan | June 19, 2019 at 15:23
Thanks Pachu for the list of all vocabularies written from the review .
Posted by: Sajan | June 19, 2019 at 15:27
Cheers mate
Posted by: Aubameyang | June 19, 2019 at 15:54
FROM SIMON:
Thanks guys!
"they are loathe to" = they really don't want to...
Posted by: Simon | June 20, 2019 at 13:38