Vietnam and IELTS

Today we have a chat with an English teacher in Vietnam. 
 
 Firstly, we talk about Vietnam and the state of English there. Then we speak about the IELTS English exam, specifically the writing part. The tips given here are quite universal and can be applied to most other English writing exams also. 
 
 Konner, the speaker is from Australia, so you can practice listening to the Australian accent and as usual we will take a look at some of the nice language he uses in his answers, including a bunch of idioms and really useful advanced expressions. 
 
Link for Konner's website: theenglishevolution.com

For classes or transcripts go to https://realexamenglish.com/

Music: Wholesome by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesome
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Real Exam English podcast. Today we have a chat with an English teacher in Vietnam. Firstly, we talk about Vietnam and the state of English there. Then we speak about the IELTS English exam, specifically the writing part. The tips given here are quite universal and can be applied to most other English writing exams also. Konner, the speaker is from Australia, so you can practice listening to the Australian accent and as usual we will take a look at some of the nice language he uses in his answers, including a bunch of idioms and really useful advanced expressions.

Ok, so first of all I ask him about Vietnam and how well people speak English there. 

The state, the state of English here is quite interesting because I I actually came here 10 years ago when I was younger and I was having a look at the statistics of it and there were 7 million tourist entries the year I came ten years ago and then last year there was 17,000,000. Like that's how much increased tourism has occurred here and as a result basically. Any like youngish person can really handle a bit of English, especially in the city centre. You go out, you go outside of course things are different, but if you're in the city centre, you're at a cafe or a bar or a restaurant. Basically, any person who looks to be at least around under 25 or so has a fairly substantial chunk of English. It's quite impressive, especially compared to other nations like China or Korea or Japan. It's really high and I think that's one of the reasons it's like business here. International investment is so large because it's probably, I would guess it's much higher, the level of English here compared to the neighbouring countries, yes.

Is that because of the legacy of America being there, do you think or is it just because it's very touristy? 

Sure, sure. Certainly a part of it, it has to be a part of it, right? They used the dollar for a while. But the other thing as well, it was French, right? So the the alphabet is romanized, whereas Thailand have their own alphabet, right? So that is already in a substantial jump up and and I would say as well, there's a lot of like. Compare… comparing to China or East Asian countries. There's a lot of English as utility here as opposed to English as exams and academic purposes. And as a result, their communication is far better than someone in again Korea or Japan because whereas they're just studying to get an exam to get a score on an exam here I feel like it's because of business. It's because they work. It's because they want a better job. There's more of a, let's say, more of a tangible goal ahead.

So are you aware of any particular challenges for Vietnamese or East Asian learners in general in terms of pronunciation or, you know, word order or anything Like that, right?

Yeah. Certainly I would say the major problem for Vietnamese learners and I think most Vietnamese learners are also aware of this problem is the consonants. Right? The consonants get removed from. Basically all sentences and there's a lot of actual English nouns that are used in with Vietnamese people speaking like motorbike and things like this, and they just use that word, but the consonants either get lessened or removed entirely. So a lot of Vietnamese students actually know quite a large breadth of vocabulary in English. They don't fully understand maybe why that traveller didn't understand them and most of the reason is they are so used to saying it with other Vietnamese people steal that English word but unable to say those consonants properly. So that's usually, I would say that's usually the the biggest things that, that the biggest thing that comes up and similarly to other Asian languages like Chinese as well.

There's no there. There isn't the same complexity of past tense that we have in English. And that exists in Latin languages, they just have a marker sort of word. That denotes it as the past. It's much simpler, so that idea of using the past is really challenging and I have a couple of quite advanced students from Vietnam. They're just still just forget to use the past tense. Not because They can't or they don't know it, simply because it's just not a thing for them, y´know.

Wow, super interesting answers from Konner, there. His first answer is a great illustration of how to use adverbs to liven up your speech. He said I actually came here 10 years ago, any youngish person can really handle a bit of English, especially in the city centre. Basically, anyone who looks to be under the age of 25 has a fairly substantial chunk of English, it’s quite impressive. Using adverbs like this is so important for adding some nuance to your speech, and a bit of colour as well, and if you can use a nice variety like in this answer, all the better.

In the next answer we heard this idiom, let’s say. He said that there is more of a, let’s say, more of a tangible goal. We use “let’s say” in this case to buy a bit of time to pick the right phrase. For example, after the movie, I was feeling a bit, let’s say, unimpressed. You can also use let’s say to introduce a suggestion or to give an example. For instance, for dinner why don’t we get loads of burgers, let’s say, 10?  Or I´ll meet you at, let’s say, 5 o´clock. Also, you can use let’s say in a conditional way, like, Let’s say it’s raining tomorrow, what will we do? meaning imagine it´s raining tomorrow. So a few different uses of the same idiom there.

One lovely piece of vocabulary to pick up on is a large breadth of, so he said Vietnamese students have a large breadth of vocabulary. Breadth, comes from the word broad, which kind of means wide. So a large breadth of is a really nice alternative to saying a wide variety of, which most of you are probably familiar with, and is totally fine, but it´s nice to have a handy alternative like this, we´re all about having a large breadth of vocabulary on the Real Exam English podcast!

Ok, so next I ask Konner about the IELTS English exam, which has two types Academic and General and here he talks about some of the differences.

The academic and the general IELTs are very, very similar. The only difference really being in the writing section and and some stuff in the reading section as well in the writing section, Part 2, the biggest part, which is an essay between the academic and general, is identical. It's not different. It's the same type of questions, the same length, etcetera. The only difference is in Part 1, whereas in the general you must write a letter in the academic you need to analyse the graphs of some sort.

OK. Cool. Yeah. That first part of the writing, uh, is quite unusual in the English learning or teaching world, like, because an essay is kind of standard enough in nearly every English exam, right? Like positives and negatives and that kind of stuff. So could you explain a little bit more about what they ask in in that task and kind of what's what, what you need to show in order to pass it.

Yeah. Yeah. So I I always say to students that always the best bet is to lead with Part 2 first and then think about part one later. And if you can do Part 2, well, generally speaking, you can do part well one. Well, the opposite is not true, though. That ability to write, that ability to form an argument, that ability to make a clean statement. That wins in both of them, and I have students who like get so stressed about Part One, especially if they're academic and they're not from like a scientific background or something. They get so stressed about it, they spend all their time on part one and they haven't actually really improved their ability to write necessarily. And funnily enough, I think Part 2 is far more challenging than part one, but students often bomb or fall apart, with part one more often, especially with the with the academic, if that makes sense.

Right.

So certainly, the the things to remember is just clarity always even with Part 2, I would say that's the the biggest thing to remember. This idea that goes through academies in many countries, particularly in in China, Korea and Japan with a lot of pressure to pass the IELTS. This idea that you need this amazing special vocabulary that you've only seen as Shakespeare play or a Dickens novel. And then I get these students writing these ridiculous passages that no one ever has written or spoken, like ever. Forgetting all of that, just getting down to the point of understanding how to discuss trends correctly, it's very good even if you want to work in English, just what goes up, what goes down, where the points cross, what are the most significant things you're looking at, and why does it matter? Why is it important? Why does the reader care? And being able to write that in three pieces, generally speaking, three pieces is the best way to go. It's quite a small essay. It's only about 150 words, usually averaging about 180 for a high scoring one, and the first one saying how can you explain the entire graph generally in one sentence? Maybe two sentences?

Right. That's your your overall kind of statement right? 

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. The second one. Can you explain the major features without using any numbers? And this gives you the opportunity to use good vocabulary to explain what's happening without actually just giving me a list of facts which the IELTS assessor doesn't want to read and doesn't really care about talking about. This doubled or talking about this is far larger in this year or something. Those lines, as opposed to saying it was 22% then it was 23% then, which don't make it boring and hard to read. Essay. 

Yeah. 

And then finally, in that third paragraph, going through and actually giving the specific numbers. So you go from, like, very broad, slightly more specific to extremely specific that sort of triangle structure. That's the best way to go about it. Yeah. That's definitely the best way to go about.

Oh, that’s great advice. I find students definitely need to kind of learn the vocabulary of comparison and like you say there, you know there's a steady increase or there's a dramatic drop or this kind of language of comparisons and superlatives and that kind of stuff they need to, to get a bit of practice on that really is key, but that's a really good tip to start broad and then kind of get narrower as you go down like and like a triangle with the point at the bottom, so to speak.

And then the second part then is the essay, OK? So like you said, really just clarity like don't go trying to be Shakespeare, you know. Try to speak or convey your ideas clearly. What else is important? 

Yeah, it's like, it's also they just use students just use like you know that word salad concept of so many adjectives in one sentence that just is such an A natural way of speaking or reading or writing. And keeping things in mind like the first thing that I talk about in the book that I have, and also it's an online course as well. Is this idea of just making a clean argument? Can you make a stand alone sentence without the requirement of context or anything like that? Can you tell me what the topic is? What your overall opinion is, and why you believe that in one sentence? Because students have this habit of adding things on top and on top and on top, you've probably seen it yourself. They've got three ands, they've got 4 commas, they've got 7 that's and thans. And that type of thing, and it's just, it's just impossible to read, and the and the and the, The thing is you have one basically 25% of your score in the essay is your task response and if you do this thing where it's not clear what you're actually saying, your opinion actually itself doesn't matter. The clarity of the of the opinion is the thing that matters, and if you don't do that, you're simply going to get a low score even if you are quite good at speaking or reading or listening. Yeah.

Wow, some superb tips there and some fantastic language too. At the start of his first answer he said the IELTS Academic and General were similar, the difference being part 1. This is a great structure to use, the difference being. It would be really nice to use in a review, or an essay, or anywhere really where you are comparing two things. They are both Italian restaurants, the difference being the price. Or The two trainings courses are quite similar, the difference being the online resources they offer. Really handy that. 

Then he says that the best bet is to start with Part 2. I love this idiom. The best bet is the action that is most likely to have a successful result. Like if you want to meet the celebrity the best bet is to wait outside his house. Or if you want to pass your English exam then your best it to take classes with Trevor or Konner! A super expression for giving advice, that one. 

Something else I really like in these answers is the use of parallelism, which is the repetition of grammatical structures, That ability to write, that ability to form an argument, that ability to make a clean statement. That wins in both of them….. why does it matter? Why is it important? Why does the reader care? This makes it quite interesting for the listener. If you’re all the time using regular sentence structures it’s a bit boring so by adding in some repetition like this, or maybe by adding a rhetorical question, it makes it more engaging.

I also like this idiom that he used, funnily enough. Funnily enough, I think part 2 is harder. We use funnily enough to introduce some surprising information. There’s nothing funny about it, it´s just surprising, or strange. Like, funnily enough, I dreamt last night that I would meet you today. Or Funnily enough, both waiters were called Trevor. 

Ok, lastly and I think most importantly I gotta pick up on what Konner said here about students writing sentences with lots of ands and commas and thats. This is something I see a lot of students doing, particularly the overuse of commas. In other languages it’s more acceptable to just keep on adding more information on by adding a comma after comma after comma. In English this isn´t the case, it makes it really confusing for the reader and it affects your communication marks as the reader is struggling to get the meaning of the whole sentence. Very often I´ll see full paragraphs, 5 or six lines long, that are just one sentence, with ten commas. When this is the case the likelihood is that it isn´t done correctly, so please please be careful with this. Have a look to see can you divide the paragraph up into two, or 3 shorter sentences, maybe adding a connector in there to show some contrast, or addition. Just to be clear, I´m not saying don´t ever write long sentences, I´m just saying be super careful with it as it takes some skill to be able to organise long sentences well and it’s definitely one of the most common errors people make when writing, overusing commas, aaaagh.

So, next Konner explains what exactly is marked in an IELTS writing exam.

So yeah, there's task response, coherence and cohesion. Your grammatical range and accuracy, and then also your lexical resource, which is your vocabulary. And I think it's always a good idea to go on for the speaking and for the writing and take a look at both of those rubrics. They're quite similar for coherence and they differ. I always do it on day one of of a new student who's doing the IELTS and they need a big increase. Again, that thing I was mentioning about the vocabulary. If you look at the Band 8 Band 7 very high scores doesn't say anything about formal language. It doesn't say anything about special language. It simply says precise and accurate usage of vocabulary. So just use right words. Just use the correct words and you will not be marked down. And in terms of the coherence and cohesion, that's where this idea of clearly giving. Comments getting used to this style of like writing a body or an argument as well of like giving your main point, backing it up and using the idea of an antithesis as well. Maybe talking about some opposing ideas and then summarizing your conclusion why you still believe in your original idea.

Yeah.

This gives you a stronger essay than if you just write this almost bulletproof sorry bullet point list off why your idea is so great, it's not very versatile. So certainly trying to talk about different types of things, certainly ensuring your vocabulary is accurate and not worrying about special words, not worrying too much about transition words, remembering that the grading rubric doesn't mention them, but remembering that transitioning words can bail you out of bad situations when you can't stick together two parts of a a paragraph for example, these types of things are there to help you and and then finally this grammatical range. I really like that word range with that, because that's really what they're looking for. And it's a common problem I see with speaking and with writing, with students of almost any language. Image when we speak as a native speaker, you bounce between all these different structures and it's it's like nothing when students learn and they're speaking the past, for example, they're probably are just repeating simple past. Simple past simple past simple past. It makes a very flat essay, and it's one of the lessons I do again in the course. Where can you talk about something in the past? And maybe use present perfect simple past, present perfect continuous to talk about your relationship with it in the past over your life, and how you've recently been feeling, for example, it just makes a much richer essay, and that's going to give you a much higher score on that, that grammatical range.

All right, cool. Super advice on that. And about your course and your book.

Yeah.

Uh, I guess we'll leave a link in the show notes on that. Or do you want to tell people where they can access that? 

Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. So you can just go to theenglishevolution.com English evolution. You can find it easy enough on there. You can reach out to me as well. You can send a message. I can answer questions if you have any. Not only that. Yeah. There's multiple courses there. The the biggest one. And the one that I work the most on is this IELTS writing. Of course it has three main components. It has essay evolution, which is the first course. You will do this last for about one month, gives you one simple task a day. It's not like this bombardment where you have to sit, sit for six hours. It's entirely unsustainable. You have one simple task a day. And you do that over this month period and at the end, I guarantee you will get a higher score absolutely. So that's the first one. Essay Evolution teaches you how to make arguments, teaches you even things about some grammar, writing a bit more complex, writing a bit more beautifully. That type of thing. After that you get the part one handbook that is mostly focused on this academic. I have a general one as well. Lasts about two weeks, and then there's also a question bank that has 50 questions and exams specific exam style questions. There are some model answers there as well with Band 8 and Band 9 type answers and that's all on the website. And not only that, there's some other smaller courses such as learning with literature and a few other things like that to just boost up if you needed extra vocabulary and extra ideas, yeah.

More great writing advice there. He makes a great point about coherence and cohesion, how to organize your argument. Making a point, backing it up or maybe giving an opposing viewpoint and then summarizing your opinion. This is really important for writing essays in  pretty much every English exam out there, particularly at a higher level, like at a C1 or C2, or for IELTS about a 7. This adds complexity to your answer and just makes it more interesting for the reader too. 

Lastly, I was delighted to hear him mention the range of grammar and vocabulary needed. Your grammar and vocab doesn´t always have to be that fancy, if you show a large breadth of normal enough English this will score well if it´s used accurately and precisely. So as Konner said, mix it up, get a few different verb tenses in there and show the examiner what you know!

Ok guys, I’ll leave a link in the show notes for Konner’s website if anyone would like to check out those courses he mentioned, which sound great by the way. 

And a big thank you to Konner for answering those questions, and he has also answered some questions for the upcoming season 5 of the Real Exam English podcast so you can check him out there. Top guy Konner.

Ok folks, that’s about it for today. Thank you for listening.

Have a good one!

Trevor