Lesson 68 – Organising your timetable
Repetition is the mother of skill
Preparing for a language exam such as IELTS is more about developing skills and less about gaining knowledge. The best way to improve skills is by regular practice. If you are now at band 7 in some areas of the test then you probably have all the language you need to get the high band you need but you must bring this language into your active memory and make sure that using it becomes second nature.
Let’s begin with some steps to a good timetable
- Decide realistically how much time you can devote to IELTS study – daily or weekly.
- Now look at the parts of the test – you need to have a combination of IELTS related and general English in your timetable. My timetables for student combine these each day.
- One ideal way of getting general English every day easily and on a range of topics is to use Gapfillers Daily Practice. These exercises are put on the site every day Monday to Friday. You can subscribe to the RSS feed to get this each day or just log in and find them in the middle of the home page.
- Now reflect on your IELTS level at present – which areas need the most practice? What kind of practice should that be? (if it is speaking do you need to actually speak to people?)
- You might like to concentrate on one area each day and really go into depth or you may find this doesn’t work for you and you prefer more variety so you could look at two parts each day – a lot depends on how you like to work.
- If you choose one topic this does NOT mean you should be going through a test!! In your long-term plan from yesterday you should have decided when you are going to do the complete test practices – all other times will be looking at individual types of exercise or vocabulary etc..
- Keep a record of progress- this doesn’t need to be detailed just what was good, what needs more practice – the learning diary is ideal for this. Review this at the end of the week so that you can plan your work for the following week.
- Make sure that you have a quiet, calm place to study. Using the computer will give you access to lots of good material BUT it can also be a BIG distraction. Decide if you will use it or not in each session and where you are not using it don’t be tempted by it!! You really need to concentrate if you are practising reading or writing an essay. If possible create a space which can be just yours and not used by others – that way you can leave your work ready for your next session. If this isn’t possible then make sure you have something to put your work in like a small box or crate so you can easily get it out each time without wasting a lot of time.
- Now that you have your daily/weekly timetable – make sure that you stick to it and follow through with the work you have set yourself.
- Review, recycle, revisit are all things you MUST do in language to make the language stick so keep doing these. It is not onward and upward – it is looking at details and making sure that you have the right answers
Here is a post I wrote about good language learning – it is not specifically about IELTS or indeed exams but gives some hints.
Make sure you have the right approach:
You need to be systematic about this – the tests themselves are VERY systematic so start now and approach your practice in the same way.
- Firstly UNDERSTAND the difference between exam practice (just going through the exam to test yourself) and training (actually working on your skills to improve). Most of your time should be spent on training NOT exam practice!
- Many students tell me that when they do the Gapfillers listening exercises they cannot get all the answers correct at one listening! These are TRAINING exercises and very long – a single listening is not the approach to take. Do them in bits, stop, rewind, listen again make sure you have the answers before you move on – if you really can’t find them then come back at the end or make a guess or write down what it sounds like – DON’T GO NEAR the answers until you are satisfied that you have answered all or almost all the questions. This will train your ear and this is important for the IELTS listening exam. Use the same approach with the IELTS listening practice.
- (Can I go back to the driving analogy – if you are struggling with parking the car then riding around for hours will not help you improve – you need to just practice parking!)
- The same is true of reading. Don’t worry about time, don’t worry about completing the exercise quickly – just worry about finding the correct place in the text and then making sure that you have the correct answer. Once you know EXACTLY how to do this then speed will NOT be an issue – I promise 🙂
- Speaking and writing, however, are NOT the same. You cannot easily improve these alone – so make sure you get the right support.
- For speaking you will need to have the opportunity to speak as much as you can. If you don’t have this regularly then please find a speaking partner in this IELTS Step by Step group. I know that some of you have already done this – this is a really great way of making sure that you get regular practice.
- Writing is the one part of the test that can actually get worse if you don’t get it checked – if you are writing lots of errors and these are not eradicated then you will learn and re-enforce them and this will be very hard to reverse and take a long time. I have said before that if you get any teacher help at all it really should be for your writing and I stand by this – not to make sure can lead to a long and uphill struggle.
Don’t forget, if there is anything you don’t understand or can’t find send a message via Contact us
I want to offer you a chance to get some feedback on your writing and speaking so that you are sure everything is on-track.
I’ve put together a Breakthrough Session which will give you great feedback on both and the information you need to improve.
I will personally correct your writing in detail and arrange a mock speaking test at a suitable time for you online and then offer feedback on your writing and speaking as well as advice to help you to move forwards to the band you want. The online speaking session will be 60 minutes and you will receive your feedback on your writing before this takes place.
You can find out more about this here
Don’t forget, if there is anything you don’t understand or can’t find send a message via Contact us
Now you’re done!