A fundamental aim of IELTS teaching is helping students to lower the frequency of mistakes in the Writing and Speaking Tests. The easiest way to do this is to target errors which the students themselves can identify, yet which continually appear in their language production. In terms of Grammar, these will constitute a large part of their total error count.

Classroom activity

1. Identify a common error, for example, with basic verb tenses – failure to switch tenses (particularly in the Speaking Test) when moving from description to storytelling to prediction.
2. In groups of three, (i) ask one student to describe something (e.g. a friend) for 30 seconds (ii) ask the same student to story-tell (e.g. what they did last weekend), again for 30 seconds & (iii) ask the same student to predict (e.g. what they will do next weekend).
3. The other two students in the group monitor for tense error and feedback at the end.
4. Repeat the process for all members of the group.

Generally, the students will make few errors because the exercise focuses them on the target structures and they actually know that present tense is used for facts, past tense for storytelling and that predictions requires future forms. But stress that these are VERY common mistakes in IELTS Speaking and Writing. Also stress the difference between KNOWING and DOING, i.e. intellectual knowledge does not guarantee success in production. Grammatical structures (and vocabulary) need to be automatized in the brain through practice if they are to be produced fluently and without error in speaking/writing.

At home

Encourage your students to continue this process at home for this and other problematic structures – I usually suggest 5 minutes every night as realistic for a sustainable, long-term activity.

The students identify common errors in production by reviewing previous writing and by listening to unprepared self-recorded responses to questions from IELTS practice materials. They may feel they need assistance in this, in which case they could be encouraged to seek help from International Tutors in the ASLLC.

Having identified a structure which they often get wrong, they practise at home, mentally creating sentences (I advise them to speak aloud, even when alone) that include the target structure. For example, subject/verb agreement with he/she/it subjects in the present simple tense – the student talks about a friend/an animal/a country, etc., ensuring present tense regular verbs end in s/es,  and monitoring irregular verb endings. The process should be repeated for a few nights.

Vocabulary error can be dealt with in the same way, targeting common mistakes such as borrowed/loaned; boring/bored; stressful/stressed.