OE_IELTS_SavvySchemes_Reading and Writing

OE_IELTS_SavvySchemes_RD

1. Savvy schemes teaching Reading: The ielts way Presented by: mark gil mariot Sources: Iteslj , Springer Nature, Wiley, British Council, IDP: Australia

2. Where are we now?

3. Why IELTS? • W idely accepted test  for study abroad purposes. accepted in the US and UK . Locally, colleges and universities are requiring freshmen students to have at least band 5. • IELTS provides   proof of proficiency in English  which is very important if you want to work abroad. Language is an essential condition for survival in a foreign land. Thus, many government agencies use IELTS as a mark to ensure the integration and are used for  immigration tests .

4. Progressive vs. intensive Progressive is for our young learners who are planning to study IELTS long term in preparation for taking the IELTS exam in the future. Intensive is for GC or VIP classes which are geared towards taking the IELTS exam in the foreseeable near future, e.g. in a month or two.

5. Our mantra We aim to be smart . We personalise . We teach in chunks. We do mock tests.

6. “I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” – Groucho Marx

7. The READING MODULE Three Passages (Unseen) from books , journals, newspapers, magazines and web-sites that cover academic topics for non-specialist audience 40 Questions 60 minutes 2,500 – 2,700 words in total MCQs, T/F/NG, Notes/Sentence Completion, Headings/Paragraph Matching, Plan/Diagram/Chart Completion

8. Teaching ielts (reading) Set realistic goals Separate key academic and technical vocabulary Guess unknown words Flash reading before skimming Use analogies in skimming and scanning Ask checking questions Summarising in pairs Encourage out-of-class reading activities

9. Set realistic goals None of your students should be aiming to get 40 correct answers, so any frustration at failure to achieve this is potentially damaging to the student’s progress. Stress that 30 out of 40, equivalent to IELTS 7.0 in the Academic module, is a very good score, meaning that attention should be focused on answering the 30 easiest questions, not the 10 most difficult. Once they accept this, your students should improve in time management as well.

10. IELTS reading SCORE CONVERSION

11. Separate key academic and technical vocabulary General vocabulary consists of the words we use in everyday communication. Estimates for general vocabulary range from 2000-3000 words Academic vocabulary is estimated to consist of around 1000 word families. These include many adjectives used to describe and evaluate things, and many verbs used to describe relationships. Technical vocabulary , by far the largest group of words, consists overwhelmingly of names for things. Where they appear in IELTS Reading, technical words will usually be defined. Help your students to recognise the difference between academic and technical vocabulary and prioritise the former in their vocabulary acquisition. There are resources to help with this, such as the Academic Word List and University Word List.

12. Guess unknown words When an unfamiliar word is asked, avoid giving a definition right away. Act as if you don’t know the word either and demonstrate how to look for contextual clues. Often the word will be a technical term and there will be a clear definition in the text. Otherwise, demonstrate to students how logical connectives, parallel expressions and collocating words usually provide enough information to guess the meaning of an unknown word in IELTS Reading.

13. Flash reading before skimming Flash-reading can be used as a precursor to skimming and involves trying to get as much information as possible from a text in a very short time, e.g. 30 seconds. The main purpose of flash-reading is to identify the topic by looking at titles, subtitles and headings, and trying to locate the thesis statement. This can also be a useful jumping-off point to get students to predict in small groups what the writer will say, keeping the reading task communicative. (CLT is arguably the best way to approach IELTS in a classroom setting.)

14. Use analogies in skimming and scanning Students have trouble understanding the difference between these two reading techniques. One solution is to avoid teaching them together. Another is to use analogies from real life. A great example for this are skimming a stone and catching a flight. These visualising techniques also create powerful emotional connections to the techniques being taught.

15. Ask checking questions Good checking questions are those that can be answered simply and that activate the areas of knowledge of the text required to complete the exam task. Examples : How many causes are mentioned? In which paragraph does the writer mention solutions? Bad checking questions are those that ask too much, such as What do you think of the writer’s views? The only effect of these questions will be to force students to re-read the whole text.

16. Summarising in pairs This is a good way to check if students have picked up on the main ideas in the text. Ask your students to close the book or cover the exam paper and spend 2-3 minutes verbally summarising the text with a partner. It’s important that this doesn’t go on too long as there will be little time to reflect on the article during the actual IELTS test.

17. Encourage out-of-class reading activities What should our students be reading outside class? it’s not what they read but HOW they read that matters most. Since reading is a largely passive activity, reading for test preparation should incorporate tasks that provide more targetted practice of reading skills. Underline topic sentences. Find five academic words and five technical words in the article. Identify the writer’s argument and write a one-paragraph response. Find names of people and paraphrase their ideas and opinions. Practice giving a two-minute spoken summary of the article, as though you are recounting it for a friend.