Phung Tien Thanh, born in 1999, just received an IELTS score of 9.0 on his first attempt. Thanh achieved perfect scores in all three skills: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and 8.0 in Writing.
Even though it was his first time taking the test, Thanh still set a goal of getting at least 8.5. “Because I already had a good foundation in Listening and Reading, I mainly focused on practicing my Speaking and Writing skills during my review process. Getting a score of 9.0 made me feel very happy,” Thanh said.
Tien Thanh was a student majoring in IT at Vinh Phuc High School for the Gifted. Since childhood, Thanh was passionate about mathematics and participated in many math competitions. Because of that, the male student did not have much time for English. It was not until grade 12, when he decided to switch to block A1 to take the entrance exam to Foreign Trade University, that Thanh focused on studying properly.
Thanh said that he always felt happy and useful when learning English. Therefore, when he went to university, Thanh still maintained his habit of practicing English for entertainment purposes. In his final year of university, Thanh decided to try his hand at teaching English to students taking the 10th grade and university entrance exams.
Having a passion for teaching, after graduating from Foreign Trade University, Tien Thanh continued to develop himself along this path.
Thanh had thought about taking the IELTS test for a long time, but it was not until the beginning of this year that he took the test. According to Thanh, to learn English and do well on the IELTS test, the most important thing is to build a solid foundation of vocabulary and grammar. Because if you do not have a firm grasp of grammar and have too little vocabulary but start learning, it will make the learner fall into a state of frustration because he cannot keep up.
“I have a motto: I will try to learn any word I see a second time. When it appears a second time, there will be a third and fourth time. Although learning one more word doesn’t seem like much, after every 200 new words I learn, I feel a little better, the reading becomes a little easier, and that is the motivation for me to continue learning,” Thanh said.
Reading is a skill that Thanh is confident in, because “apart from vocabulary, there is not much to prepare”. Therefore, the most important thing is still to “plow” through a lot of vocabulary. “The IELTS score will not change if the number of new words does not increase. Most candidates who score low in this part still have low vocabulary,” Thanh said.
In addition, some common mistakes in this section are due to misunderstanding the grammar structure or thinking about the wrong answer. According to Thanh, vocabulary mistakes are acceptable because not everyone has time to learn all the words, but mistakes in grammar and test-taking skills should never be repeated.
To overcome this, according to Thanh, learners should create an Excel file divided into two columns, one column to record the situation (describing the error), one column to record how to fix it, and from there progress through each topic.
Listening skills are also trained similarly to Reading. However, errors in this part are more diverse with factors such as pronunciation and poor listening reflexes. These are all things that "take a long time to get used to" so it will be difficult for beginners.
“To listen well, make listening to English a hobby instead of something you ‘have’ to do. The hardest step is probably finding interesting content that is within your ability. But once you find it, you can listen even when your eyes and hands are busy, like washing dishes, driving, taking a shower…”, Thanh said.
With Speaking skills, according to Thanh, before practicing speaking, one needs to master the English phonetic table and learn pronunciation characteristics such as stress, linking sounds, etc. Then, learners practice the habit of talking to themselves, possibly starting with the simplest sentences like "It's about".
“It may be difficult at first because your vocabulary is not large enough. I also went through a period of stopping to look up words because it was quite ‘cumbersome’. However, don’t be discouraged if your speaking is poor because practice can change everything.”
When you have spoken well enough, according to Thanh, you should find a partner to practice your speaking reflexes. Because the examiner is not too concerned about whether the answer is right or wrong, but wants to see if the candidate's answer is related to the question and how the reflexes are.
Writing is considered the most difficult skill by Thanh because it requires a deep understanding of the semantic differences between words. Candidates need to have a wide vocabulary and understand the requirements of the test to write a good quality essay. In addition, understanding is also required to make the essay convincing.
However, according to Thanh, candidates do not need to try to use difficult or sophisticated structures. To get a high score in this section, it is enough to not make basic mistakes, use relative clauses and contractions.
“For this part, candidates should prepare ideas in advance to save time. For example, when writing about transportation, you can read documents in advance to see how other countries have done it, which countries have done it well, and what policies they have applied so that when writing about this content, you can use them as examples. When you have learned enough, you will have a 'warehouse' of documents so that you don't run out of ideas when entering the exam room,” Thanh said.
Thanks to studying English every day and being persistent, Thanh did not feel “discouraged” on his IELTS preparation journey. In addition, according to Thanh, practicing test questions in the final minutes is necessary, helping candidates get used to and control their time better.
After achieving 9.0 IELTS, Thanh hopes to share his experiences and lessons with many people who want to conquer this type of certificate. In addition, 9X will continue to develop a vocabulary learning website specifically for students.
11th grade male student achieved 9.0 IELTS on the first try Thanks to building an early English foundation, Tran Minh Duc achieved 9.0 IELTS on the first try, including perfect scores in all 3 skills.
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