We love feedback from our students. It helps us improve our IELTS learning materials, it helps us understand what students want and need, and it also helps us realize what many IELTS students don’t understand about studying and learning IELTS. In this blog post we will talk about some problems students have, and the solutions to these problems.
Some students think that if they learn enough IELTS vocabulary, or enough IELTS tricks, they will achieve success on IELTS. This is simply not the case. Learning IELTS strategies does help, but learning IELTS is about more than knowing the mechanics of the test. In English there is a saying “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. Many students want their teacher to feed them fish. While rewarding in the short term, this is not the path to success. When we teach IELTS, we teach our students “how to fish”. We teach the skills they need to properly think about what they read, what they hear, what they say, and what they write.
In the “key strategies” section of our IELTS course, we teach you the three main skills needed to think and analyze the questions found on the IELTS. The ability to visualize, paraphrase, and think critically is key to IELTS learning and IELTS success. When you find a reading passage difficult, or an essay difficult to write, these are the skills which will help you understand the task and help you succeed.
Another problem students run into is the desire for instant success. Learning IELTS and achieving IELTS success is a long process. Watching a few videos is not enough for IELTS success. You must engage critically with the learning process. You must ask the “what? why? how?” questions of critical thinking, and you must be patient when success does not come right away.
Learning IELTS is like constructing a building. You need a strong base if you want a strong building. If you have a weak base, the building will fall. The best way for learning IELTS is to develop a strong base of English and IELTS skills, then build up with strategies, tips, tricks, and vocabulary.
Start building your base for IELTS success today here at www.gieltshelp.com
I am having some confusion with the ideas expressed in the above article.
First of all, during reading section, we are under immense pressure due to time constrain, which does not allow us to critically understand the whole passage. By the way, in such situation the mind naturally drifts away to think intellectually in order to understand the whole text. Therefore, I infer that there should be some other strategies which can properly handle this issue. Although I am confident with visualization and paraphrasing, still did not work out for critical thinking.
Hi Roomi, I can sympathize with your position, many students feel the same way. Stop focusing on the time! If you must think about it like 1200 seconds for each passage and not 20 minutes. Watch the second hand of a clock tick 1200 times and you will see that there is lots of time to read. Critical thinking (or reading in this case) is a skill you must improve before you sit the IELTS, so it comes more naturally during the test. All the best with your studies.