Brett林熙老師 / Lindsay SAT 林熙國際 (大安): 【雅思策略&實力深化】雅思聽力口說班介紹

Intro to my IELTS Speaking and Listening class:

I’m really short on time, so I’ve procrastinated on writing the article about it.

In the past, have taught Speaking & Listening together, separately, short classes, long classes, etc.

This time, I’ve combined Speaking and Listening into one class because of the intimate relationship between speaking and listening. Basically, our grammar and vocabulary for listening is directly related to speaking. Think about it – you’ve probably read words or phrases hundreds of times, but you never say them until you hear somebody say them. Then you can finally say them too. This has happened to me hundreds of times in Chinese.

As students need much more help with their speaking than listening, I will focus 60-80% of the class time on speaking. This also suits my style of teaching. It may not be the best way for others to teach, though. Listening can break the monotony of always speaking (sometimes students feel stressed in a 3-hour speaking class), and the skills are related, so they help each other.

Not only that, IELTS listening is great for training our pronunciation and our understanding of linking sounds.
Students who come to this class can expect to be VERY active - there will not be very much teacher talk time (TTT). I am not the focus of these classes - you are.

At my previous school, there were only 6 speaking classes, which simply does not allow enough time for students to practice all the techniques. This will be 12 classes, and students will have LOTS of practice time, so they can internalize the techniques, rather than simply understand them. Everybody knows that techniques must be practiced several times (with guidance) as soon as they are taught, otherwise they will not be learned properly.

The listening component will also relax students between heavy sessions of speaking. Changing focus helps with learning. Think about it: when you’re reading one kind of book for a while, you start to lose focus. If you switch to another kind of book, you regain focus. Later, you switch back, and you can get more done overall. Speaking is so intense for most Taiwanese students, that they need regular breaks. The great thing about relaxing with the listening is that they’re still learning techniques and practicing answering questions while they rest.

I like teaching both the listening and reading parts holistically. That means that techniques and question types are taught in the context of complete passages. There’s a certain continuity to the listening and reading passages, and I feel it’s better to not break that continuity.

There will be minimal study of the scripts during class time, but there will be quite a lot of homework, for both the listening and speaking parts. Be prepared! Do not come to this class if you are not prepared to do tons of practice every single day. Any day that you do not practice speaking is a lost opportunity. If you don’t speak English for 2 days, you’ll start to go rusty. Then you’ll need to spend even more time getting it back!

Before and after each class, I’ll set aside 30 minutes for 1-on-1 mini speaking tests with students. These are critical to your success! For many students, talking to examiners is scary! Being tested by me is also scary! The ONLY way to overcome a fear is to do the thing you fear until you don’t find it scary anymore. That’s why I force everybody to do a mini mock test every single class. That’s also why I’ve kept the classes small. First, I’ll ask a few questions, then I’ll give a few comments and sometimes I’ll give a score. But not always! The score is not the most important thing - facing your fear and learning how to improve are the most important things.
So, if you’re prepared to practice speaking for at least 30 minutes a day, don’t miss this opportunity.