Foundations Newsletter

Online IELTS help is an invaluable—and certainly underused–resource for HCT teachers and students struggling to get that elusive band 5.  Teachers may have their favorite few sites that they guide their students to while students may just click on the first thing that comes up on their Google search.  Neither technique maximizes the potential of the internet to give students the practice that they need.

A Google search for ielts brings up better than 54 million results.  Not surprisingly, quality varies widely: sites are limited or aren’t maintained, or links don’t work.  To cut through all this noise–and maybe give you a few new tools for your toolbox—I’ve looked at some of the popular sites we use here at the Sharjah Colleges.

Sharjah Colleges HCT site 

http://sites.sjwc.hct.ac.ae/ielts/?page_id=5

This is a link library created by SHC faculty member Andy Downer.  It has links to a variety of sites that support all four IELTS skills.  Sites linked include the British Council and Abu Dhabi Men’s College.  Other more comprehensive linked sites, like writefix.com and ielts-exam.net, are broken out separately below.  There are lots of practice opportunities and essay topics here although not all links work.

IELTS-Exam.net

http://www.ielts-exam.net/academic_writing_samples_task_1/843/

Decent site with lots of information about the IELTS test, a good tips page, practice materials for all four skills and full practice tests.  A few drawbacks here:  my biggest issue is broken audio/video links for speaking and listening tests (except the first one).  And they didn’t respond to an email informing them about the problem; not good!  I also find the site heavy with advertisements.  Despite these two issues, ielts-exam.net is quite complete and should be a bookmark for anyone teaching IELTS.

Speaking

Lists of practice questions prep test takers for a variety of topics in Parts 1, 2 and 3.  There are also full question/answer transcripts of speaking tests.

Reading

In addition to full practice tests, there are also single texts with accompanying questions that allow students to work with a variety of IELTS question types:  YES/NO/NOT GIVEN, paragraph heading etc.

Writing

Dozens of Task 1 and Task 2 questions and model answers for both Academic and General tests.

IELTS buddy

http://www.ieltsbuddy.com

Definitely my personal favorite:  IELTS buddy is so well organized, comprehensive and detailed you could organize a course around it.  Practice tests, mini-lessons and error analysis support all four skills.  Links and sound files work and it has very active, up to date forums and comments sections, which may motivate students.  It also has good, well considered sections covering grammar and vocab for IELTS.

Speaking

Sections for speaking tips, practice questions and tests, model answers, and analysis of live recorded tests.

Reading

Skills mini-lessons and practice tests and passages with questions and a key that explains why answers were correct.

Writing

Includes writing tips, practice questions, models and error analysis of student papers

Listening

Test tips and strategies; practice for the four different parts as well as a full test and keys.

Writefix

http://www.writefix.com/

This is a general site that also has support for PET and TOEFL.  Writefix  even has some IELTS speaking questions, but its strength lies in the large number of Task 2 model essays.  Research shows that reading in a genre helps with the production of that genre, so if you want students to be able to write Task 2 essays, have them read Task 2 essays.  Another plus is that both Task 1 and Task 2 essay topics have UAE or Gulf content, so students will have some background to the issues.

Spelling Lab

http://www.ugru.uaeu.ac.ae/Spelling/ipad.html

If you’re not using this top shelf site created at UAE University, you should be.  Spelling Lab is stable with an attractive interface.  Users work with items at four levels:  IELTS Essential Words, Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3.  IELTS Essential Words has about 500 words based on useful topics like Days and Months, Education, Houses etc.  Students see items three times:  they copy and spell the word, pick the correct spelling from a list of four and then listen to and spell the word in a quiz format.

YouTube

If you’re teaching speaking, don’t forget YouTube.  There are many, many videos on all four IELTS skills, but I think having students see and analyze live speaking tests is especially useful.  Here are a few examples that highlight the three parts of the IELTS speaking test.

Part 1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLQXHw3PkTA (Band 5.5)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtijWEcFh7M (Band 6)

Part 2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0DYAYAV6Xk&list=PLfyNfr_vMoh_DIU7oJ35N3PNrhgRXzMLK (Band 5.5)

Part 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5nfkHxED-k (Band 6)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZKWewLjkWY (Band 7)

Good Luck!!!