Are you the type of person who relies on templates when you do your
IELTS writing? I know that a lot of students will
search the internet looking for kind of a template or um,
a structure where they can just put in the, the ideas that they have
in the hope that they're going to increase their score.
Well, today's video is a discussion about
whether that's a good thing or whether we should maybe avoid that type of
strategy. Um, and the reason why I've decided to talk
about this today is because somebody contacted
IELTS Daily on Instagram. They sent a message which was a picture
of a template and
um, I saw this picture and I looked at the template and I thought
ummm, this is actually quite damaging to
students, students who really need a good score.
Following their um, discussion with the, with the other channel,
I realized that a lot of people who want to help others, like
other IELTS channels, are actually causing problems for
students. So if you want to hear more about this,
this is a discussion about this topic and I'll talk to you about why
this type of methodology and this method isn't the best kind of course of action.
So, we're going to start very soon. My name
is Chris from IELTS Daily. Let's go.
As I mentioned, I was contacted on Instagram by
another IELTS channel. It's a small channel on Instagram and it looks like
they're trying to help other students and they happen to send a picture to us
of a template and I'm going to show you that template very soon on the screen.
The problem is that this template would actually cause a lot of issues for
students if they decided to follow this structure.
And I thought I would do the right thing and
I contacted the channel and I told them that
if students follow this template they would probably score a band five, maximum
band five. And we got into a conversation on
Instagram about you know they didn't believe me that,
that, that it would be a band five because
other students have scored a band seven with this template.
And it started raising a lot of questions for me and
thinking how many other students are out there
who think that this is a good strategy? And I just want to put to bed some of
the um,
rumors, some of these myths about what is a good way to
prepare for the test. So we're going to get up on the screen
now the, the sample answer and you'll see that it,
it says at the top 'essay format' and this is trying to solve an 'advantages and
disadvantages', 'agree disagree', 'reasons and discuss both views'. Well, the
first thing that I would say is that there is no template which would solve
or answer all of those types of essay questions.
And we really have to remind students that
there's no one-size-fits-all strategy for each
essay that you do. The most important thing that when
you're writing an essay is that it has to be natural.
It has to be something which isn't memorized.
And you'll see on the screen that this particular essay
is very memorized and at times
it's actually really problematic. Some of the language they use in there
is erroneous, it's not correct, it's not
something which is accurate, and we'll have a look at each part as we
go through. So the first paragraph is and I'll read
it aloud and we'll talk through some of the ideas.
It says 'in this concurrent world, it is undoubtedly true that'
and then the student is required to insert a common line of the topic.
Well, first of all, 'in this concurrent world'
is erroneous, it's faulty, it's not good English.
So they're already starting on the, on a bad foot.
Um, in this well the word 'concurrent' means
'at the same time' and so you can't really say in this
concurrent world. Um,
then just leaving a space to put your ideas in is not
a great way to do it. Um,
so not a great start. It then continues
um, first of all there's no space after the full stop. The full stop should have
a space after it. And in the computer delivered test you'll be picked up for
punctuation mark. So it's really important that you put the space in
there. 'Some people concur that
and the opposite of your opinion'. So,
the word 'concur' um,
is an intransitive verb and
you would just say 'I concur' which means 'I agree'.
You don't really 'concur that'. It's not a transitive verb.
I believe that xyz.
But we wouldn't normally say 'I concur that'
in this case. So again, faulty language.
Then it continues with again 'however', it
doesn't have a space before it. It should have a space after the full stop. It said,
'however I quibble from and propound that'.
This is extremely problematic because the word
'quibble' means to
'disagree' or 'to argue' and
it doesn't mean 'I argue or put forward a case that'.
So I argue that xyz and that's my position.
When we say 'quibble'
it means to be, to, to argue but in a um, kind of between
two people. Um, like quarrel.
'Quibble' also could mean to be um, to be focusing on detail. 'Stop
quibbling over the details', 'stop focusing on the details'.
So 'quibble' here is really the wrong verb.
Further to that, we would never say 'to quibble from'.
So they've used, 'however, I quibble from'. And that's using the wrong preposition.
It continues and says 'and propound that'. Um,
again incorrect verb. It doesn't make sense.
Then, they've included you've got to put your
opinion in. The whole of the introductory
paragraph is problematic. It
doesn't make sense. Even if you included your ideas, even if the language that you
use was perfect, the language that surrounds it and
that's, that's made this, the template is made from
is erroneous, it's faulty and as a result
it makes it difficult to follow your position, it makes it difficult to follow
your ideas. It's incorrect, it's um,
the language accuracy is poor therefore
things like grammar, lexical resource are going to be limited
to a band five. So you've got um,
a multitude of problems. You've got um, difficulty ascertaining a position
because of the language that surrounds it. It's really difficult to understand
the position, the linking of ideas is not great,
the vocabulary and the grammatical accuracy
are poor, and therefore
even from this first paragraph, I would
say that
it would be really, really, really difficult for any candidate to score
above a band five here. I think that everything would sit
at a band five. The template goes on.
Um, we don't need to talk about the rest of the template. What I want to do is
show, is bring to your attention just how important it is
not to use templates like this. I've said it time and time and time
again that
when you're preparing for the IELTS test, you have to use language which we use on
an everyday basis. It's language that is natural, that you
find in um,
books magazines. You're not trying to use the fanciest
language. I can see what they've tried to do here by using the word 'quibble'
because the word 'quibble' is very uncommon,
they think that that's going to help them get better marks in
lexical resource. The reality is that it's actually going
to hinder or it's going to hurt and not to help.
Um, we have a saying in English, 'is it going to help or is it going to hinder?'
the reality is it's going to hinder, it's not going to be helpful to any
candidates. And
it's really admirable that this channel or this
Instagram page has really wanted to help students,
the problem is that
by trying to help it's actually doing the opposite thing.
It's actually hurting students. So,
I just wanted to bring this to your attention. I hope you found this video
useful. If you did, please give this video a like, come over
to our Facebook page where we've got different posts that are coming up, we've
got the weekly uh, YouTube live class, come along to that.
It's great to see so many different people there.
Also the IELTS Daily website has a plethora
of videos which are there to help you. Which we are sure will assist you and
help you get the score you need. And the best thing that you can do is to look at
the comments section below all the videos and you will see that actually
the IELTS Daily method of not using a template and that using
your own natural language is definitely the best thing that you could do. So
thanks for watching. I'm Chris from IELTS Daily.
Take care of yourselves and good luck with your IELTS preparation. Bye for now.