Job Discussion Forums

[evans13]

Does anyone know how to make teaching IELTS more interesting? It�s the first time I have had to teach the course and personally I find it rather boring. The speaking section is ok as I can actually engage the class but reading and writing is becoming a nightmare. My class are not interested in the slightest and hardly ever turn up when I�m teaching these sections.

[JosephP]

[raven15]

Ha ha. If I knew how to get students to be interested and come to class I'd tell you. For me it's the opposite, my writing students never miss a day, but my oral English students never manage to make it. I actually wish some of the writing students wouldn't come, because they put no effort into it, consequently wasting both our time (and the rest of the class). On the other hand, the oral English students become shy of talking if there are fewer than six of them. I keep trying to talk about more interesting things, while at the same time making it clear on the penalty if they don't come, but they are not showing up.

[olabueno]

Yeah, my kids are dropping off too. It also has some correlation to the upcoming winter break, so don't feel too bad.

I've tried a lot of different approaches and I'm struggling right now. A bad attitude is even more infectious here than back in the States (with my high schoolers).

Try and speak one on one with one of the class leaders; one who shows a tendency to speak/be on task. Ask them for help with not only strategy, but also application. For example, tell them what you plan to do next class and ask them to be a leader of discussion. May sound easy/corny, but it usually works.

[struelle]

I've faced exactly the same thing before when teaching IELTS. The biggest challenge is that the topics are simply *boring* for both the teacher and students. At least the ones I taught, most of the students were teenagers, and the IELTS topics weren't very relevant for their lives. You can just imagine a stunning lecture on teaching them how to discuss the costs and benefits of capital punishment, the issues related to urbanization, or the role of changing technology in the workplace.

But that is exactly what they are required to do on the IELTS test. Basically they have to sit there for an entire day taking 4 components of an extremely grueling and demanding test based on topics they would hardly use in daily life, even in their own native language.

Since the prep classes revolve around the test, there really isn't much choice to but to design lessons that mimic the test expectations.

The best I can come up with all kinds of variations on the mock interview. Maybe have the chairs arranged in a circle or something like that and each interviewer is assigned to sit down in a chair. As the interviewee progresses around the circle, he or she is asked questions of an increasing difficulty by those tasked to ask such questions beforehand.

For example, maybe have 5 people in a circle for the urbanization topic.

Person #1: "Tell me about your hometown where you grew up"
Person #2: "How has your hometown changed in the last 5 years?"
Person #3: "How would you compare Shanghai with your hometown?"
Person #4: "What do you think about the changes in Shanghai recently as they prepare for the World Expo?"
Person #5: "How do you think Shanghai will deal with the increasing migrant population, especially after the World Expo?"

As for reading, that's even tougher. What I tried was to 'reorder the piece' by splitting the reading into various chunks, each with a different heading. I had various students read various chunks. Firs they had to match headings with chunks, and then arrange themselves so that the chunks were in their original order.

Listening was the best part for teaching, as the kids were good enough to figure out how the test was designed here. So it was easy enough to guide them through the process of listening for the right things.

Having said all this, many kids at our school have a better go at doing IELTS than taking the in-house English course requirements which are equivalent to what locals back home would do. These English courses are brutal, and the average hovers around 50% at best. Many students say 'eff it' and go for the IELTS instead, where the decent ones can still pull off a 6.0 or a 6.5 and still get into the overseas colleges they want.

Steve

[sui jin]

I don't teach an IELTS course but I often use IELTS speaking topics and listening exercises, and even some of the writing tasks in my Uni classes. IELTS speaking is highly structured and I feel it can help students learn different conversational and speaking strategies. Also the first part of the academic writing test (info transfer from a chart etc) is unusual and challenging for students. The listening exercises are often interesting and easy to use.

So my suggestion would be , if you always teach on an IELTS prep course, look for other material and exercises, that give students a short break from the rigid IELTS format - role plays , dialogues, and performance in speaking, story writing or description in writing etc.

[ssean]

For the ielts reading, you can manipulate the text so you can do gap fills, ask students to identify the word type, get them to summarise, do grammar exercises using the readings, get them to identify key words, just use the text to raise awareness of the structure of a complete article, what makes a good intro, how the text is organised. use the readings not just to teach reading but the whole gambit. encourage the students to engage with the text in as many different ways as you can. when i was teaching ielts i found many of the students were quite motivated because the result of their test had such massive consequences. But at the same time, i do sympathise, the major problem is overcoming unknown grammar, remember reading somewhere if a student has difficulty deciphering more than one word in ten, then they will never be able to make sense of what is being said. And the subject matter is hardly the most stimulating for often young and immature teenagers who have very limited life experience.

[dialogger]

look for international job ads that require English to an IELTS level and get them to 'interview' for them.