Writing IELTS exams in a heatwave

 

What did I learn from writing IELTS exams and model answers in a heatwave?

I thought I was going to have a nice, long summer. A road trip around France, followed by a few quiet weeks back in Madrid working on PASS courses. And a short trip to the cooler environs of Hamburg to finish.

How wrong I was! Everywhere was stiflingly hot and I also got involved in an IELTS textbook writing project. More fool me for taking it on but I couldn’t resist. You learn so much from being directly involved in exam writing. I was asked to write IELTS exams, in addition to model answers for Writing Tasks 1 and 2. So, essentially I was on both sides: examiner and candidate.

The age group for the content was 14 to 17 and the aim was to prepare students for when they do IELTS when they’re older. This meant that I could write reading texts and listening scripts which reflected content which teens might be interested in. The writing and speaking tasks were also adapted to take their age into account. This was a blessing, because IELTS content is sometimes quite obscure, to say the least! My personal favourite is the scholarly article on dung beetles which IELTS includes in its official exam practice material.

Writing exams and model answers in a Madrid heatwave was tough, but if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen! Moreover, I learned a few things along the way. Let’s look at each part of the exam in turn, starting with the Writing test, to highlight some key points.

Even when you know what the examiners are looking for and have a clear plan for the answers, it is extremely tough to write two structured pieces of writing in just 60 minutes and fulfil the tasks correctly. All the way through the process I thought more and more about just how important it is for students to learn what the assessment criteria are and to follow exactly what is required of them. Just a couple of slips and the band score falls.

In some ways, the Task 2 essay is a more natural format than Task 1, but there are five different essay question types and some of those can be subdivided further. For both tasks you really need to be on top of what is required. It is just as important as the level. Many native English speakers, even good writers, would not achieve high band scores in IELTS because they would not be sufficiently focused on Task Achievement / Task Response.

I was reminded while doing the work of a short video I did a while back on IELTS Writing task order. It is definitely a good idea to reverse the order and start with Task 2, otherwise the temptation will be to spend a disproportionate amount of time on Task 1 and it’s worth fewer marks. Here is the video.

What about the Reading test? Two things stand out: the sheer volume of reading and the wide range of task types. We all know that the True / False / Not Given and Yes / No / Not Given tasks are especially difficult for candidates and we need to support them so much on understanding the difference between False / Not Given and No / Not Given. To get an angle on my own answers I found it really helpful to use Yes / No concept checking questions for these tasks. Again, I really think many well-educated English native speakers wouldn’t do so well on these tests.

What is my advice? Well, teachers should carry out the tasks themselves regularly and follow their own advice to see if it really works! And learners need to follow the strategies they learn to the letter, with lots of practice and no deviation. Every task has its method and every learner must be both examiner and candidate.

The Listening test has something in common with the Reading test, namely the presence of many distractors. Spotting them must be so challenging for learners but a strong analysis of what they are and what their function is can help immensely. They offer a great opportunity for learners to demonstrate their cognitive ability and should be dealt with as such.

Learners must be aware that direct word matches are always suspicious, that things said in the Listening are often rectified and changed later, and that the second point is often the correct answer. Which of course leads us to stress the importance of paraphrasing key words and expressions and looking for synonyms.

Finally, we have the Speaking test I feel that IELTS is a bit more straightforward than the Cambridge exams when it comes to speaking. The long turn is perhaps a more natural activity than describing photos, for example.

However, it did strike me that it’s difficult to carry out really extensive pronunciation work in large classes and although textbooks do cover the key pronunciation areas its importance may get lost. The assessment scales make it very clear that intelligibility is paramount. There are three areas in which advanced learners can really improve their intelligibility: intonation, word stress and sentence stress.

I did a mini crash course on this for some social media sites recently; the links are provided below. The aim was really just to make learners more aware of the importance of this. It’s irrelevant if your accent sounds really English if word stress is poor.

So, to sum up, what was my key takeaway from writing IELTS exams?

• Every teacher must be a teacher, examiner and IELTS candidate
• Every IELTS candidate must be an IELTS candidate, examiner and teacher

Obviously that requires a certain level of maturity on the part of both teachers and candidates! But it’s the key to success. We’re a team after all. What do you think? Do you agree?

Links:

• https://www.tiktok.com/@passenglishexam
• https://www.instagram.com/passenglishexam/reels/
• https://www.facebook.com/passenglishexamdotcom

PASS courses are currently available for IELTS Academic, IELTS General Training, Cambridge C1 Advanced and B2 First.