- Hey, Chris here, from IELTS Advantage,
and did you know, that the average score worldwide
for IELTS writing, is just 5.5,
and most students fail the test,
or fail to get the score that they need, multiple times
before they finally achieve the score that they need.
And what we're going to look at in this lesson is,
helping you achieve a Band seven or above a Band seven
in IELTS writing, with 20% of the effort,
for 80% of the results.
Hence the reason why most students repeatedly fail IELTS
writing, is not because there's anything really wrong with
their level of english, or their approach to writing
or their writing skills, it is how they are approaching
their preparation.
And it's basically the fact that they are not applying
common sense.
Common sense would tell you that, if you are struggling
to get the IELTS score that you need,
you would just identify the exact reasons why that is,
you would fix those reasons, and then you would improve
and get the score that you need.
But the whole IELTS industry, is set up in a way that
doesn't actually land itself to doing that very, very
obvious thing.
So I'm gonna show you in this lesson, exactly why that is,
and show you exactly what to do, to get the result you need
with a small amount of effort.
So this is not a video teaching you tips and tricks
and hacks and shortcuts and how to cheat the test,
because we don't teach that, because that doesn't work.
This video is gonna tell you how to identify the exact
reasons why you're not getting the score that you need
and how to fix those, and then get the score that you need
next time.
Okay, so, in order to explain why common sense is not
applied during IELTS preparation, I'm gonna take you back
about six or seven years, when I worked for the British
Council,
and this is what the IELTS course that I worked on
look like.
So, it was an eight week course, four hours a week,
and this is what you'll see all around the world.
So if you go to any course, it doesn't have to be the
British Council, it could be most courses,
it will be like a 20 hour, or a 32 hour course.
And what they'll do is, they'll teach you all about
listening and about reading and about speaking and
writing task two and writing task one, and then say,
okay, go and do the test, and then most people fail.
Then you come back and they'll say, okay,
do the exact same course again.
Which sounds absolutely crazy.
But sounds even more crazy, when you realize that
most people have no problem with listening.
Most people have very little problem with reading.
Most people don't even need help with speaking.
So they're wasting on this particular course,
they were wasting or most people were wasting
five weeks of their lives, because they might need a Band
eight in listening, and they've already got a Band eight.
They might need a Band seven in reading,
and they're already at that level,
So they just wasted a huge amount of time.
And then what that did was it meant that
the last three weeks were very rushed,
and you couldn't give the students the attention that they
deserved, on the things that they really needed to work on.
Why is it like this?
Well, that's just the way it has always been done,
then when you have an industry that does things
the way that they've always done them,
it's very hard for them to change and do the right thing.
It's not that they're cheating anybody,
or trying to rob your money,
it's just that's the way it's done, and also,
that's what students expect when they join an IELTS course,
they want to be taught everything, even though
they don't really need it.
So what I did, I decided to set up a writing course
that just focused on writing,
because people were constantly coming back to us and saying,
yeah, I got the scores that I needed for listening
and reading and speaking, but I didn't get the scores here,
So I said, okay, let's change how we do things,
and do a whole eight week course, just on writing.
And this is what it looked like.
So, weeks one, to week five,
we focused on writing task two,
and then the last three weeks,
we focused on writing task one.
And scores really, really did improve,
but I still wasn't happy because there were a number
of students, who were still failing the test,
and there is a very good reason for that.
If we looked at a lot of the students scores,
and we looked at their essays,
and we looked at their task one responses,
some of them, for example, only needed help with grammar,
or some of the students only needed help with
introductions and conclusions, and everything else was fine.
So, just like the previous course,
they were wasting their time.
So we had one student and who is very, very typical
of a student who is failing the test over and over again,
because they keep getting 6.5, 6.5, 6.5.
And for her, the only thing that she needed to work on
was grammar.
So this was a waste of time, this was a waste of time,
this was a waste of time, this was a waste of time,
She was fine with task one, her vocabulary was pretty good,
but she just needed to focus on grammar.
And until she fixed her grammar issues,
then she was never going to pass the test.
And this is something that we see on our VIP course
over and over and over again,
people stuck at a 6.5 for just one or two reasons.
So this was a complete waste of time for her.
And a lot of the students kept failing,
because we were only spending, this was two hours,
out of a 32 hour course.
But then, we had another problem.
I brought this up and started talking about it
with other teachers. and what they would suggest was,
well, if their problem is grammar,
teach them a whole grammar course.
Well, I hope that you can see the trend here.
Her problem was not grammar in general,
her problem was articles and prepositions.
Meaning all of these other areas, were fine
and a complete waste of her time, if she was to study them.
She just needed to focus on this area, and this area.
So for that particular student,
this type of learning,
which is the most popular,
complete and utter waste of time.
Articles and prepositions, is probably mentioned zero
in this whole course.
For this course, out of the two hours, it might be mentioned
for 15 minutes, if they're lucky.
But instead, by identifying the only reason why she was
failing, was these two issues and totally focusing
her efforts on that, for two weeks, four weeks, eight weeks,
however long it took to help her improve those areas,
then she was able to get the score that she needed.
So by focusing on a small percentage of things,
and focusing on the things that really matter,
she was able to get really, really good results.
And that is what you guys need to understand, and what you
guys need to do in order to get the score that you need.
So that might sound a little bit weird,
a little bit strange.
So let me put it in a different context for you,
If mechanics were English schools.
So imagine you bring your car to a mechanic,
and they have this mentality that an English
school would have.
What an English school would do if they were fixing your car
is, they would fix every single part of your car,
even though only one part is broken,
and that would take months to do.
Instead, what a mechanic does, is they take an hour or
two hours, just identifying the exact Part within your car
that is wrong and replacing it or fixing it.
And that is exactly what you should be doing with your
IELTS writing,
or imagine your doctor had this English school mentality.
So you go in with a broken leg,
if your doctor was an English school,
they would tell you, well, you need to improve your diet
and then loose some weight, and then get more sleep,
and let's check your blood and check your iron levels
and check your hormones and all of these things,
when really, you just want them to fix your leg.
All right?
Imagine going in with a broken leg, and they don't
actually pay any attention to your broken leg,
and they try and fix everything else,
when there's nothing wrong with you.
That is why most students waste a huge amount of time
and waste a huge amount of money and get very stressed
and fail the test over and over again,
because English schools and the IELTS industry,
has this type of attitude.
So how can you apply this 80/20 approach to your writing?
Identify the specific reasons,
why you are not getting the score that you need,
fix that, or fix those, if there's more than one,
and ignore everything else.
I'll repeat that.
Identifying the specific reasons why you're failing,
fix them, ignore everything else.
Extremely obvious and simple.
That's just common sense, but very rarely is common sense
applied in the realm of IELTS preparation.
So let me give you an example of what we do
with our VIP students.
When they send us their essay, we don't correct every single
grammar mistake and every single vocabulary mistake and tell
them every single thing that is wrong with their essay,
what we do is, we put their essay up on the screen,
we have a real teacher who records their screen,
and talks them through exactly what is wrong with their
essay.
Not every single little thing,
but the things that are going to cause them to fail.
So they won't focus on 100 different things,
they will look at one, two or three things and say
these are the three things that you really, really, really
need to work on.
Here's how to improve those things.
Here's how to get better.
And that's why we see such good results on our course.
And many of you might be thinking, well,
the problem Chris, is that,
I don't know how to identify my specific reasons.
Well, let me ask you this question.
Would you try and fix your own broken leg?
No, that would be absolutely crazy.
Would you try and fix your own car?
No, that would be absolutely crazy.
Why do we have experts?
Experts are there, so that you can give them money,
and they save you a huge amount of time and stress
and fix your problems.
By trying to fix your own car,
or trying to fix your own leg,
you're going to make things worse.
You think that you're saving time and saving money
in the short term, but you're actually going to waste a huge
amount of time and money, and stress in the long term.
So what you need to do,
is find someone who really knows what they're doing,
get them and say, I don't want a general course,
I want you to tell me exactly what is wrong,
and exactly what to do to fix that.
And because our VIP course is so successful,
and we have so many great results,
we actually don't have any spaces available,
because of the level of support and feedback
that we give our students,
we only work with a really small number,
and we are completely full at the moment.
But if you want to join our waiting list,
you can click below and add email address
and one of our course advisors will be in touch with you,
when one of our current students gets the scores they need
and they leave, a place will become available.
So if you're interested in getting our help
and applying this extremely simple approach,
but extremely effective approach to your writing,
just click the link below,
add your email address,
you'll be automatically added to our waiting list,
and when your time is right,
we will contact you and offer you a place.
Thank you very much, hope you enjoyed this video,
and I'll see you again soon.
Bye Bye.
(upbeat music)