If you have read the previous two IELTS posts (here and here), which you must, then you are probably screaming, “Stop, Sam! It’s so depressing!” Remember, I just want to share the other side of the coin, bring some balance to the table. So, enough negativity, let’s hear the solutions, if they aren’t already obvious, and get some more optimism in the room. So let’s talk about a healthy approach to IELTS.
Have an English first approach.
Put IELTS on the backburner. You don’t need to worry about that now. If you are in a rush to get an IELTS score, than you made a mistake years ago. You’ve been neglecting your English! Try to learn English because it’s fun. It’s enjoyable. It’s powerful. It’s enabling. It helps you see things, hear things, watch things, and talk about things you’ve never been able to before.
This will help you be positive and always motivated, despite getting a low IELTS score. This might be the most important key to having a healthy approach to IELTS!
Be patient.
Allow IELTS to assess what your English actually is, not what you pretend it is (yes, learning IELTS-passing strategies is pretending your English is better than it actually is). Look for slow, long-term growth through sustainable language learning habits. Don’t let the stress and the pressure build up because of a time restraint. Put your time goals aside. Don’t let time be a factor or it will turn around and bite you (because time is like a wild dog that doesn’t like being chased all the time 🤣). Don’t fall for the “Pass IELTS Quick” marketing.
This will help you persevere and enjoy the slow road to English growth.
Get your mindset right.
See IELTS as what it actually is: an expensive, necessary, strict, rigid, English test that protects natives from non-natives and protects non-natives from natives. If you don’t understand that sentence, you have to go back and re-read the pitfalls of IELTS post. Don’t think of IELTS as something you have to beat, or it might beat you.
Think, instead, of it as a litmus test of your readiness to go overseas. Remember that it is designed by English teachers and assessors who have had extensive experience abroad and with immigrants in their own country.
The people making the test know how to grade you based on what you can do. And the university, school, company, or country requiring that ridiculously high score has seen hundreds, if not thousands, of people like you come and live with them. They know what kind of English level they feel comfortable with, and they know what it looks like when the person they bring over struggles every day of their lives until they go home.
This will help you make better decisions and react to your IELTS scores in a healthy way.
These three things will get you farther.
These aren’t the traditional “get IELTS quick” words. They’re probably not what you want to hear, but I’m doing my best to be honest. There are so many money-making strategies out there that want to give you false hopes and dreams so you buy their courses, so I want to be the other voice. We need a balance of perspectives.
It is a wonderful and amazing thing to experience another culture in a foreign country. I love it, and I’ve become completely international. It’s my way of life, and I think there is a lot you can learn from living like this, but I do know that there is also a dark side to the same coin. We have to be honest and open about both sides to have a complete view and get a healthy approach to IELTS.
So, by seeing the dangers and finding solutions to them, I hope you are now better equipped to make English a positive, long-term, fruitful part of your life! Start growing like a tree today, and you’ll get fruit in the right season!