October 2015
Teaching in Practice Upcoming Events Resource for Teaching
Readers' Poll Exam Services Burning Questions
       
 

How to help students understand "What is appropriacy in IELTS?" Try the "fashion matching" method from a talented teacher in Wuhan.

 

Applications of ELTons Awards 2016 and registration of second round of IELTS MOOC are now open! Each takes what you need.

 

2 new test centres launched in Shanghai and Zhongshan respectively.

 
Teaching in Practice
 

Helping students understand the idea of appropriacy

When working with the IELTS band descriptors, a challenge some teachers face is helping students understand some of the academic terms. This brief article looks at how one of the participants in the Wuhan IELTS workshop helps his students understand the term 'appropriacy'.

Click here to read the full story

 

Inspired by the research

To coincide with the third British Council New Directions Assessment Symposium, we are introducing a dedicated slot called 'Inspired by the research'. This month we've selected one of the research articles about speaking and look at using lexical cohesion in class.

Click here to read the full story

Upcoming Events
 

Applications of ELTons Awards 2016 are now open!

The ELTons sponsored by Cambridge English, are the only international awards that recognise and celebrate innovation in English language teaching (ELT). They reward educational resources that help English language learners and teachers to achieve their goals.

The categories we are inviting applications for are as follows:

  • Excellence in course innovation
  • Innovation in learner resources
  • Innovation in teacher resources
  • Digital innovation
  • Local innovation

We also invite applications for The Macmillan Education Award for New Talent in Writing which is open to aspiring ELT authors who are yet to publish any of their work. The winner receives £1,000 and the opportunity to publish their work.

The deadline for applications is 6 November 2015.

Click here to apply!

 
 

Second Round of IELTS MOOC: 'Understanding IELTS: Techniques for English Language Tests' open for joiners now!

This is our second round of free six-week course, starting 21 September. It aims to familiarising learners of English with IELTS and gives them a chance to share tips and practise their skills.

Tell your students to sign up or even join yourself! It is never too late to learn!

Click here to sign up!

 
Resource for Teaching
 
 
 

Practice materials connected to study trips

In the last survey, we asked you what kind of holiday you like to take. We think you were on holiday, as we didn't get as many responses this time! However, of those that responded 40% said that during holiday time they would like to go on educational trips or study trips.

We've selected a couple of practice activities from our LearnEnglish website suitable for IELTS students. Visit the links below to try some activities that connect to the topic of educational trips and the environment. The listening activities are similar to a number of question types found in the IELTS test. Suggest them to your students as additional practice activities.

Click here to view the activities

 
Readers' Poll
 
 
 

What's your favourite local cuisine?

a) a)Cantonese
b) Dongbei
c) Sichuan
d) Uighur
Other

Click here to vote

 
 
Exam Services
 
 

New test centre in Shanghai

Read More

New test centre in Zhongshan

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Deadline for test registration will be extended

Read More

New UKVI test centre in Beijing

Read More

New test centre in Dalian and Xi'an

Read More

 
Burning Questions!

Do you have questions about teaching, English or IELTS that you would really love an answer to? Send them to colin.barnett@britishcouncil.org.cn 

Remember, we also have a Frequently Asked Questions list on www.chinaielts.org, for you to visit!

Hello Colin, I was at your workshop on Listening and Reading which was useful. However, I would like to know how I can help students with the Speaking part as this would likely be the most challenging for them.

Hello,

Thank you for your request!

Do some diagnostic work with students. Ask them which part of the speaking test they think will be the trickiest. Carry out a mock test to find out which part they struggle on. Similar to the listening test, there is gradual increase in complexity. Most students would probably find talking about abstract/complex issues in Part 3 tricky. However, do some diagnostic work to find out what is tricky and investigate the underlying causes.

On our IELTS Teachers Essentials course, we show some simple processes for doing diagnostic activities for all four skills. Contact us for more information about that course.

Updates and information about the test is available on www.chinaIELTS.org and www.IELTS.org

I would like to know how students can organize their ideas effectively in the speaking test.

Hello,

When thinking about this issue, it's good to remember that the Speaking Band Descriptors are based on what happens in spoken language. Talking in real time has stops and starts; a speaker will go back and start again, correct themselves, go off on tangents, hesitate for ideas,... These features are all acceptable in the speaking test as this is what happens in real-life. IELTS is not about giving perfect speeches like an orator.

That said, being coherent in what you say is important, as this will help the listener. Using the one-minute preparation time to make notes (Part 2) and using thinking structures can help with organisation of ideas (useful for Part 3) for example. One easy to use structure that we often demonstrate at workshops for teachers is PPF, where you take a topic and talk about it from the perspective of the past, present, and future.

Previous Issues: February 2015 丨 April 2015 丨 June 2015 丨 August 2015 

Please contact us for any questions: Colin.Barnett@britishcouncil.org.cn.