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I’ve talked about mindset for IELTS in 2 other blogs:
In this blog, you’ll learn how to ask better questions so that you can get better help.
In the Members Academy, we work on the skills you need to become an independent learner.
Learners who are self-motivated and who manage their own learning are the ones who tend to make the fastest progress.
Good teachers are trained to ‘elicit’ (they help the students find their own answers, so the student is active) rather than ‘explain’ (the student is passive).
So here’s how you can start asking the right questions to improve your IELTS score (scroll down for examples and the podcast version).
Look at some common questions students ask me. What do you notice about them?
These are questions about quantity, and the answers will not be helpful to your IELTS preparation.
Q1: It depends.
Q2: It depends.
Q3: It depends
Q4: It depends.
Q5: A discount does not make the course any better – it will just make you value it less, so you are less likely to learn from it.
Try to stop thinking in terms of numbers. Focus on developing your language skills, no matter how long that takes, how often you practise, how long the videos are or how much it costs.
It’s difficult to answer these messages, because they’re not questions. I tend to respond with more questions:
I very rarely get a response. I guess that the people who ask this type of question are looking for a very quick fix.
If you need help with IELTS, the simple question you have to ask yourself is: “What kind of help do I want?”
Then the choice is simple:
You need to decide what help you want and how much time/money you are willing to invest.
We all love free stuff, and we’ve all been ‘conditioned’ to expect things for free on the Internet.
Many online course providers give away a lot of free stuff in the hope that you will see the value in what they do and at some point pay for their services.
Unfortunately, this encourages the “Is it free?” question rather than “Is it good?” or “Is it what I need?”.
We are often disappointed to discover that this person is now asking us for money, after giving away so much for free.
So we look elsewhere and keep finding more free stuff to download.
This has a terrible effect on your mindset for IELTS preparation. It keeps you stuck in a cycle of repeating the same mistakes and never progressing beyond the superficial ‘free level’.
‘Baby bird syndrome’ is hard habit to break. It’s like expecting your parents to always provide for you, even when you are grown up and earning a salary.
When you break out of that mentality and commit to something, you will free up time and mental energy that you can devote to making progress.
Ask a simple question, get a simple answer.
If you can answer a question with a simple answer, or if you can guess the answer, it means you can probably answer the question yourself.
For example
Answer: Read more. Understand more.
Answer: Write more. Join a writing class.
Answer: Study grammar. Practise regularly.
Answer: Yes.
Answer: I don’t know you.
When students first join the Members Academy, they often post their writing in the private community and say “Is this sentence ok?”.
It’s a natural thing to do when we’re learning – we look for feedback and correction.
But as a long-term learning strategy, it doesn’t work, and I strongly discourage my learners from doing it.
Instead, learn how to ask SMARTER questions.
Ask a better question, get a better answer.
What is a “SMART” question?
In our Members Monthly Meet-Up, Stefano asked this question.
Stefano wrote:
I was doing the lesson about “How to make a request in a letter of complaint” in the General Training Writing Course, and I have a problem with this statement:
“Could you please arrange for the microwave to be collected from my house?”
Why do I need to say “Could you please arrange for…”?
Can I just say:
“The microwave will be collected from my house.” (future passive)
This is a SMART question.
So what is the answer to Stefano’s SMART question?
Do you need to say “Could you please arrange for [the microwave to be collected from my house]”?
Yes, you do need to say “Could you please arrange for…”. This is a REQUEST, so it needs a request structure.
Other options
When we discussed Stefano’s question in the group, I didn’t need to explain the answer – I was able to elicit it from the students by comparing the 2 options.
“The microwave will be collected from my house” is a fact, not a request, so it is not appropriate for this type of letter.
It is much better for you to work out the answers yourself – you will process the answers at a much deeper level and you are more likely to benefit from this in the long-term.
In order to make your questions smartER, you need to:
The whole purpose of asking questions is to learn from them (not to get a quick correction that you will easily forget).
In this example, we learnt that
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Learn more about SMART goals for students (Purdue Universisty blog)
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