Girl gets 7.5 IELTS from zero

"I could only answer the first part. I didn't know how to say the rest. I felt so helpless," Nguyen Kim Ngoc, who just achieved an IELTS score of 7.5, recalled.

Cô gái đạt 7.5 IELTS từ con số 0 - Ảnh 1. — Nguyen Kim Ngoc achieved 7.5 IELTS from zero

Used to be sad and disappointed a lot

Kim Ngoc (25 years old), a bachelor of international business, University of Economics and Law (Ho Chi Minh City National University), was born and raised in a district of Ben Tre province. Learning English from a young age was something strange to Kim Ngoc.

"In junior high school, learning English was mainly about grammar and memorizing vocabulary, so I was still able to get 6 or 7 points without feeling much remorse. But the shock came to me in 10th grade, when I was a literature major at Ben Tre High School. In my first English test, I only got 5 points, while my classmates were all very good at this subject. I understood that my English situation was very bad and cried a lot," Kim Ngoc recalled.

After that, the girl born in 1998 studied with a tutor but could not improve her almost basic English level. "That year, I felt very lucky that I was admitted based on my academic record with the A group and was accepted. But in the high school graduation exam, my D group (math, literature, English) score was not high," the girl recalled.

In the first year of university, according to the school's regulations, students must take an English proficiency test to be placed in a Business English class (divided into levels 1-2-3-4). Ngoc failed the test on the first try, not enough to enter the Business English class level 1, the lowest level.

Ngoc was very disappointed in herself and had to continue to take an intensive English course for about 4 months at school before taking the exam again. She studied with friends from remote areas, who knew almost nothing about foreign languages.

Life changing moment

After that review, Ngoc took the test and got enough points to enter the Business English 2 class. She also tried to study hard in class, practicing pronunciation more, but still did not have good reflexes in speaking skills. "This made me very frustrated and self-conscious. I thought I could not learn English anymore," Ngoc recalled.

But one thing is for sure, students like Ngoc who want to graduate from university must have an IELTS score of 5.5. Otherwise, all the efforts of the past 4 years will be in vain.

One afternoon, she went to a coffee shop and met Phan Huynh Thao, a close friend who studied at the same specialized high school in Ben Tre. She was a girl who was very good at English and always had a great passion for English.

"When I told Thao that I was very discouraged, studying English all the time but not getting any better, not knowing if I could graduate. Thao immediately said she would teach me. Thao was then a student majoring in foreign economics at the Foreign Trade University in Ho Chi Minh City and had a part-time job as a tutor. I immediately nodded," Ngoc said.

Cô gái đạt 7.5 IELTS từ con số 0 - Ảnh 2. — Ngoc (left cover) and colleagues. Phan Huynh Thao, a close friend who helped Thao find love for English (second from right)

Twice a week, Ngoc takes two bus trips from dormitory area B, Ho Chi Minh City National University (bordering Binh Duong) and continues walking one more leg to the self-study area of Foreign Trade University, Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City to study with her friend.

In the first session, Ngoc learned speaking, not grammar or vocabulary. With encouragement from her friends and careful comments after each speaking part, Ngoc gradually became more confident. She suddenly thought, "Oh, so I can speak English." For the first time, she felt a glimmer of confidence in her foreign language learning.

Her friend gave Ngoc a lot of homework, reading materials, vocabulary, and sentence structures. What's special is that her friend's emotional explanation of a word helped Ngoc not get bored with studying.

"My friends in the dormitory at that time were used to me waking up, having breakfast and studying English from 7am to 11am, taking a short break and then studying English from 1pm to 5pm. Every night, I would sit down and study again from 7pm to 11pm. I memorized many pages of vocabulary, many sentence structures, and could memorize a very long paragraph of new sentences," she said.

After studying 1-on-1, Ngoc switched to studying in groups with 5 friends. After her speaking skills were good, she studied and practiced listening-reading-writing skills. Her initial goal was only an IELTS score of 5.5 to graduate from university, but after 1 year of hard work and effort, she achieved 6.0 IELTS on her first attempt (speaking score 6.5; listening 6.0; reading 6.0; writing 6.0). Ngoc feels that when English learners get rid of their inner inferiority complex that "I can't learn a foreign language", learning will be much more effective.

"From zero to hero"

Cô gái đạt 7.5 IELTS từ con số 0 - Ảnh 3. — Ngoc (right) and close friend Nguyen Thi Thuy Duong

Not satisfied with 6.0 IELTS, Ngoc continued to study English on her own. After graduating from university, Ngoc took the test several times but could not pass the 6.0 IELTS mark. She decided to temporarily stop working part-time for a period of time just to study. On the day of welcoming the new year, January 1, 2020, Ngoc burst into tears when she received an email announcing the results, she had achieved 7.0 IELTS.

By the second half of 2022, in the latest test, Ngoc achieved 7.5 IELTS - something she never dared to dream of 3 years ago. From being a student of her best friend, Ngoc has become a colleague, and together with her friend, she is teaching English to many people who are still having difficulty with this foreign language.

"From being a person who lost his roots and studied ineffectively, I am now like a new lover, always finding attractive points in English. I can read books and watch English movies all day without getting bored - something that terrified me before. I can sympathize with many people who have studied for a long time but cannot confidently use English and help them arouse their passion for the subject," Ngoc said.

Commenting on Ngoc, Nguyen Thi Thuy Duong, a graduate of the Faculty of International Relations, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City, a close friend and colleague at an English center, said: "It is common for a person to go from zero to 5.0-5.5 IELTS, even though they have to study very hard. From 0 to 6.0 IELTS is more difficult."

"Those who have studied and practiced IELTS understand that if you can get from 6.0 IELTS to 6.5, then 7.0 and 7.5 IELTS, it requires a long time of hard work, great will and effort. I always tell my friends, Ngoc from 0 to 7.5 IELTS, is like going from "zero to hero", from 0 to hero, step by step conquering the fear in yourself, winning over yourself, turning your dreams into reality", Thuy Duong shared.

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