Opposites and Negatives

Pip   05/June/2008, 19:10

Following are some useful prefixes which are used in English to make the opposite or the negative of a word.   a~ = without:  amoral, apolitical, asexual anti~ = against:  anti-ageing cream, anti-clockwise, anti-nuclear counter~ = against:  counter-terrorism... [More]

Category: General

Writing Task 2 - Argument-led approach

Pip   05/June/2008, 18:39

There are different types of questions for IELTS Writing Task 2.  Knowing the structure and strategies for each type can save you time.  You won't have to spend lots of time thinking about how do do the question.  Knowing these approaches will help you to get started planning an... [More]

Category: IELTS

USA welcomes IELTS students.

Pip   13/May/2008, 21:10

I have always persuaded students to take IELTS.  Whether they wanted to go to university in an English speaking country, or just for general English improvement.  It is the best exam for preparing students for using English in high level situations, whether these are when studying ac... [More]

Category: IELTS

When can I take my IELTS test?

Pip   12/May/2008, 14:26

A question I often get asked by my IELTS students is, 'When can I take my test?'  This obviously depends on what your current score is and what score you need.  My advice first of all, is to take a course in IELTS, and when you are getting the score you need, consistently, i... [More]

Category: IELTS

Three wishes and a surfboard

Pip   08/May/2008, 20:54

A Frenchman, an Italian and an Irishman wanted to be the first people to surf across the Pacific.  They had set off one morning in July.  When they had been travelling for a month the weather changed dramatically and the waves became bigger and brok their surfboards in two. Luckily,... [More]

Category: Joke Box

Marking your IELTS Speaking test

Pip   08/May/2008, 20:20

  There are some changes coming to the way the speaking module of the IELTS test is marked.  At the moment, candidates’ pronunciation abilities are marked using a four-band scale - low level to high level, and then added to the rest of ... [More]

Category: IELTS

What's my IELTS score? #2

Pip   08/May/2008, 19:17

Obviously the scoring for the Reading and Listening sections of the IELTS test is straight forward.  The examiners work out your score out of 40 and then convert that into the IELTS score depending on the difficulty of the IELTS test you have taken.   For Speaking and Writing s... [More]

Category: IELTS

What's my IELTS score? #1

Pip   07/May/2008, 14:46

You might be thinking that there is a wierd and wonderful secret way that IELTS examiners calculate your score for the reading and listening section of the tests.  Well, you'd be happy to know that it is really simple and you can roughly calculate your IELTS score for listening and readin... [More]

Category: IELTS

How to say hello.

Pip   02/May/2008, 17:00

There are many ways of saying hello.  Here are some ways of saying 'hello' in informal situations, for example to your friends, or even a colleague. Hi  Hi Jane Hiya Hey Peter Alright? How are you? You alright? How's it going? ... [More]

Category: English

Improve your memory.

Pip   02/May/2008, 13:18

Here's a quick tip on how to improve your memory of phrases or grammar.  It's really simple. First of all, write the sentence down on a piece of paper Read it aloud Remove one word from the sentence Read the sentence again ... [More]

Category: English

IELTS speaking for the shy

Pip   01/May/2008, 21:30

It come up the other day in one of my classes that because there was a culture of shyness in the class, I found it rather difficult to get responses from the students to my IELTS questions.  Shyness is a big obstacle to overcome, and I don't understimate the difficulty that students have ... [More]

Category: IELTS

Improve your General English by studying Academic English and IELTS

Pip   30/April/2008, 00:52

Many of my students ... hold on ... probably 99.9% of my students over the years have asked me how they can improve their English.  It would be very worrying if less than 99.9% did; however, this is such an important question that a teacher could spend decades trying to answer it.  No ma... [More]

Category: IELTS