IELTS can open doors to studying, working and living in Australia, UK, US, Canada, New Zealand…
Are you planning to take IELTS Academic or General?
Are you looking for a teacher who can help you achieve the score that you desire?
To prepare you for IELTS, Arina can:
- assess your current level in speaking, writing, listening and reading
- create a plan of how to achieve a desired score
You can take a one-to-one session
Arina can also work with small groups
Book an initial chat with Arina
First consultation is free
What is IELTS?
IELTS is an abbreviation that stands for International English Language Testing System.
It is an exam that tests your knowledge of four dimensions of the language: listening, reading, writing and speaking.
Why should I take IELTS?
IELTS is useful if you want to study, immigrate to or work in an English-speaking country. Many English-speaking countries ask for the results of IELTS. If you get the required score, you might get a chance to study in the UK, Australia, US, Canada or European countries to name a few.
IELTS required for your visa application
Some countries require IELTS when you apply for a visa. You might be applying for a student visa, temporary residence visa, permanent visa or a working visa. The immigration department of the country you are interested in will tell you what score you need to demonstrate in order to meet their requirements of obtaining the visa.
IELTS required for entering a university or college
The university or college you are applying for will tell you what score is required. Often the score the university will ask for will depend on whether you are planning to study for a certificate, diploma, bachelor’s degree, master’s or PhD. It will also depend on your specialisation.
IELTS required for a job application
Some workplaces will ask you to demonstrate a specific IELTS score. If that’s the case, you will either see this requirement in the job description or the potential employer will tell you early in the recruitment process that IELTS is required.
IELTS score – Bands 0 – 9
There are 10 bands in IELTS: from 0 to 9, where Band 0 means that a candidate didn’t attempt the exam, and Band 9 means that a candidate speaks with a native level proficiency.
The most commonly sought after Bands are 6, 7 and 8.
Band 6
If you get Band 6, it means that you can get by in an English-speaking country: you can solve day-to-day problems that occur in the normal course of living in, for example, Australia or UK. If you achieve Band 6, it means you can express your ideas, communicate with your colleagues, social circles, and academic staff.
If you can do all these things with Band 6, then what is the difference between Band 6 and higher bands? It’s a good question! The answers lie in your fluency, grammatical accuracy, idiomatic language that you use. Your fluency depends on several factors, and one of the most important one for IELTS is your level of automaticity, in other words, how quickly you communicate what you need and how quickly you understand what others say. If you observe yourself speaking in your native language, you will notice how rapidly communication flows. You react to what others say without a delay, you understand them immediately and can share your point of view right away. So, if you got Band 6, it means that you are still working on your level of automaticity and fluency.
Band 7 and 8
If you got Band 7 or 8, it means that you can express yourself pretty well, your fluency is at a good level and you can understand what is being said and react to people’s points of view. Band 7 and 8 also mean that your grammatical accuracy is at a pretty good level. You can form a range of simple and complex sentences while maintaining a logical progression in the delivery of your ideas.
How to achieve a desired score?
The first step you need to take is to understand what score you currently have. For the reading and listening parts of the test, it is easy to do – just find IELTS past papers – and there are plenty of them – and do the reading and speaking parts and check your answers. For the writing and speaking parts of the exam, you need a professional to evaluate your current linguistic competency.
Who can be that professional? You need to find someone who has taught IELTS and successfully helped students achieve the right score, or an IELTS examiner, whom harder to find. Another option is to sit for the actual test and find out your Band. This is an expensive and quite stress-inducing option. Also, the downside of simply booking a test and sitting for the test, is that you won’t get any feedback on your written and speaking work. You will simply be given a Band, and without specialised knowledge, it will be hard to know what to do next to increase the Band.
Arina’s experience teaching IELTS and helping candidates achieve the right score.
Arina worked with clients based in Australia, Middle East and Europe to get the score they needed for their visa application, university admission and entering workforce in an English-speaking country. She can assess your writing and speaking components of the test and give you feedback on what needs to be done to achieve the desired score.
Start your IELTS journey
Book your free consultation
What to expect when you contact Arina?
You will have a 30-minute consultation with her. During this consultation you can tell her what score you need to achieve, when you need to achieve it and why you need to achieve it. You will then complete a speaking and writing tasks that will help Arina understand your current Band and develop a strategy of how to achieve your desired score.
What Arina’s students say
Some English-speaking countries, where IELTS is required to enter a university, enter workforce or immigrate
United Kingdom
London, UK 2020
Australia
Sydney
What will happen when you get in touch with Arina?
Step 1
To gain a good understanding of your learning priorities, Arina will ask you these questions:
- Do you need to take IELTS General or Academic?
- What score do you need to achieve?
- Do you have a deadline?
- Have you taken IELTS or other standardised tests, such as TOEFL iBT, PTE, Cambridge exams before?
Step 2
Arina will give you two tasks: writing and speaking. If you complete these tasks a few days before a scheduled session, Arina will be able to prepare a more precise lesson plan.
Sample speaking task
Answer each question verbally, record yourself using vocaroo.com and send the recording to Arina.
“Which social media websites do you use?”
“How much time do you spend on social media sites?”
“What kind of information about yourself do you put on social media?”
Source: IELTS 14 General Training with Answers: Authentic Practice Tests. Cambridge University Press, 2019, p. 53
Sample writing task
Answer these questions in writing and share your answers with Arina.
“Some children spend hours every day on their smartphones.”
“Why is this the case?” “Do you think this is a positive or a negative development?”
Source: IELTS Academic 17 with Answers: Authentic Practice Tests. Cambridge University Press, 2022, p. 51
Step 3
You will have a lesson with Arina. It is also possible to complete Step 1 and Step 2 during the first session if you can’t find time beforehand.
Resources
Depending on your learning needs that Arina will determine during the Step 1 and 2, these are the resources that we might be using –
IELTS Papers
IELTS 10 with answers: Authentic Examination Papers from Cambridge English Language Assessment. Cambridge University Press, 2015
IELTS 12 General Training with Answers: Authentic Practice Tests. Cambridge University Press, 2017
IELTS 13 General Training with Answers: Authentic Practice Tests. Cambridge University Press, 2018
IELTS 14 General Training with Answers: Authentic Practice Tests. Cambridge University Press, 2019
IELTS Academic 15 with Answers: Authentic Practice Tests. Cambridge University Press, 2020
IELTS Academic 17 with Answers: Authentic Practice Tests. Cambridge University Press, 2022
IELTS preparatory guide and mock tests
Cullen, P., French, A. and Jakeman, V. (2014) The Official Cambridge Guide to IELTS Student’s Book with Answers with DVD-ROM. Cambridge University Press.