Listening Practice 02 - Health Clubs

Here is a second practice listening for you, this time the topic is "Health Clubs" - just play the film on Youtube and it will give you time to read the questions before the audio starts, just like in the exam.

The answers are given afterwards. The complete transcipt (showing you WHY the answers are correct) can be downloaded at the link at the bottom of this page.

If you have any requests for the next listening topic please let me know and I'll do my best.




For a printout of the listening and a transcript with answers you can download it here.
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1LCyaQkPPAhZzlzTmNjOXJMOUk
I hope you find this useful, if you do please click "Like" on my Facebook page here
https://www.facebook.com/londonenglishclasses1?ref=hl Thanks.



"Shirley hadn't been to the Health Club for a while"



Listening 01 - Tourism

Here is a practice listening for you, the topic is "Tourism" - just play the film on Youtube and it will give you time to read the questions before the audio starts, just like in the exam.

The answers are given after the listening.

You can find a free worksheet with the audio script and some vocabulary exercises here:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1LCyaQkPPAhZE5fU2c1amtVdm8

Geographical vocabulary for IELTS

IELTS exams seem to be particularly keen on geography. I suppose the idea is that we are all surrounded by geographical things - rivers, hills, cities - so the language is useful for everyone (as opposed to chemistry or philosophy, for example).

So all parts of the IELTS exams can contain questions where, to get the correct answer, you need to know some geographical terms.

How many of the words in the box do you know? 

a hill	a range	boulders	a puddle
a hamlet	a town	a stream	a tributary
gravel	a pond	a mound	a lake/reservoir
a bush	pebbles	a city	a tree
a wood

Can you put the words into this table in order (from smallest to largest)? 

a)		river
b)			sea/ocean
c)		mountain
d)		rocks
e)			forest
f)	village

            Watch the video for the answers.

if you're a teacher you can get a copy of this worksheet here: https://docs.google.com/a/londonenglishclasses.com/file/d/0B1LCyaQkPPAhS0E2Wlp6dF9qVGs/edit

Vocabulary - shapes

In the IELTS listening you sometimes have to listen to a description of a diagram and either
a) label the diagram using words from the listening
b) match options in a box to parts of the diagram
c) match parts of the diagram to descriptions

The diagram could be a map or plan and later we will look at vocabulary useful for these. But sometimes the diagram is of an object,  often something like this:

To know which part of the object is being described it's important your vocabulary includes all of the basic shapes.  Here is a list of basic shapes - make sure you are familiar with both the nouns and their adjectives:

IELTS Writing Part 1 - Episode 3

So far we've looked at describing change in tables/graphs etc. This episode looks at when there ISN'T much change and the language we need to describe that:

There are some practice graphs for you at the end - just press pause if you need more time to read and think about everything before the answers come!

IELTS Writing Part 1 - episode 2

The second episode of tips for Part 1 writing looks in more detail at describing trends in graphs, charts, and tables. It gives you the essential adverbs and adjectives you need.

Thanks for watching!

IELTS Writing Part 1 - episode 1 - describing graphics

Hi, this is my first posting on my new blog, designed to help people doing the IELTS exam. My name is Martin and I've been teaching all over the world for the last12 years. I've worked in some really good schools in Germany, Spain, and the Czech Republic, but now I'm living back in London. I give private lessons in London and online with Skype. I also do a lot of academic proofreading - helping people at university with their dissertations and theses etc. If you have any questions please just send me a mail here or to martin@londonenglishclasses.com

I hope this blog grows into something useful, I'll try to add something new every week or whenever I have time.
If you have any suggestions for what YOU would like to see here and what you would find useful please get in touch and let me know.

Thanks for looking!

Martin

This is my first clip - introducing the basics of the IELTS Part One Writing, where you have to describe the information in a graphic. Enjoy!