[IELTS Journey] The first chapter: Having no ideas and finding my own method [PART 1]

Hello everyone, it's me again with my own story of conquering IELTS. Today, I continue to tell you more about my very first days of this journey when I HAD NO IDEAS of the test and how I can find my own ways. 

Where do we go, honey ???????????

To begin with, as I was saying, I started to learn IELTS at the end of the first year, which was totally new to me. After I completed the second communication course at AMA English center, I had a quite good ability to communicate English but unfortunately, I spoke like the wind, which made other people including my foreign teachers and my friends find difficult to understand. Furthermore, this made me get stuck sometimes in thinking of new ideas and even worse, I lost my pace and my flow was clipped. After that, I thought about IELTS through the introduction of Mrs Trinh, the manager at ALCE classes at AMA. She said to me that I was very competent and I could push myself to the limit if I learnt IELTS then. Right then, I decided to do the mock test at AMA, in which I was ranked in Pre-Intermediate Level, which made me feel disappointed for several days. One week later, I made a decision to learn IELTS because I thought that I would not have enough time whether I waited till the third year. So, my journey began!

At first, I searched on the Internet  those kinds of book that I could make use of during my study. After a while, I chose GET READY FOR READING and WRITING, which actually did not help me much :| Why do I say that? Well, to be honest, the books only help me have an overview about what IELTS is, how many passages in the reading paper, or how many tasks in writing, etc , all of which I could have searched on the net without photocopying those materials and spending more than one month trying to digest that basic knowledge. Anyway, two of them are all contributors to my success, sooner or later :) 

Here they are :) 

So, what I did next? I then made every effort to do the mock test at home, including Reading and listening. I did many tests in one night, especially listening, I remember the first time I did it, I used to listen to the recordings three times without noticing that the candidate is only capable of listening only one time. However, my scores vaired, ranging from 5.0 to 7.0 ( OMG - 7.0 @@' ), which made me feel confused and did not know what I had to do next. After many attempts, I asked myself whether I did anything wrong or not, why my listening and reading score was so bad that I thought I was like a basic learner, while I got 8.5 in the university entrance exammination. Needless to say, at that time, I was kind of obssessed with my past victory and I tended to sit on my laurel for so long. 

At that time, I used to hear of the techque which helps me improve my listening skills until now and it is called " Transribing method". Nevertheless, due to the fact that it would take a great deal of my free time, I did not apply it. Thus, from May 2015 to July 2015, I was engrossed in doing Listening test and not finding out what was my real problem. I felt as if I was getting stuck in a maze that had no entracne as well as exit, which gave me some splitting headaches once in a bluemoon. Furthermore, I was in hurry at that time, since I thought that I would not complete my IELTS test and get 8.0 in the last year, so all of them seem to be a great burden to me, which enforces me to try harder and find the solutions as soon as possible. 

                                                              To be continued....... 

[IELTS Journey] How I got started with IELTS ( Part 2 )

As I told just now, GRAMMAR was the mere thing that I used to study as I was in highschool, which absolutely affected my communication ability within the following years and that was the reason why I found out about IELTS for the first time. So, the question at that time was what I was about to do with the IELTS and how I could help me to address these series of issues. Well, as you may know, IELTS is the international certificate that is used to test and assess your proficiency in English systematically. Based on that, many educational institutions all over the world have chosen this kind of test so as to test their students' English. Apart from that, a great deal of companies also use this result to look for the best candidates whose English is not only excellent in practice, but also perfect in academic knowledge. For many other individuals including me, this test is a perfect tool, and a target that can help them to push themselves to the limit, and to conquer the world of academic knowledge. In general, IELTS is crucial for many individuals. :)

Now, I am going to share with you my long and incredible journey to IELTS

To begin with, I will divide the entire process of learning and training into three parts:

• The first chapter: Having no ideas and finding my own method
• The second chapter: Having an overview about IELTS
• The third chapter: Struggling with many obstacles
• The last chapter: Speed up and do the test confidently 

After all those parts, I would like to share with you the source of materials I did you during this journey, or you can prefer it to the weapons, or kind of accessories , items you use to defeat your enemies. :D Just kidding. A great deal of materials will be available to you guys, so stay tunned and wait for it. :)

Life is often likened to a journey and IELTS is, too :)

[IELTS Journey] How I got started with IELTS ( Part 1 )

This is me :) 

Good morning everyone, my name is Dang Khanh and I am 20 years old, not too old but not too young to dream of a good result of the IELTS test ^^. Currently, I am studying at Universíty of Finance and Marketing in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and my major is Business English. Well, many people asked my why I chose this school for English major, why it would not be other educational institutions such as HCM Pedagogical University and University of Social Scientist and Humanity due to the fact that they are the best universities excelling in teaching and training students whose expertise in English. At this time, I just have to say it seems to be my destiny with my current school. Three years ago, when I prepare my registration form for my university entrance exammination, there are lots of choices out there. However, honestly, my proficieny in English at that time was not good enough, which gave rise to my fear for failure in the University Entrance Exam, which might be the most crucial exam in the studenthood. As a result, my last decision was UFM, whose entrance score was not too high, but not too low for a good student like me. By the way, it has been over two years since I got admitted, and I do believe irrespectice of your school is, the way you gain knowlegde is by far important, which can hellp you obtain higher levels of professional attainment. 

And this is my IELTS result

Let me talk to you a bit about my studenthood, more specifically, the way I learnt English within that period of time. Well like many other individuals at highschool, I did have various memorable moments in my studenthood, ranging from taking part in extracurricular pursuits to playing jokes, from cheating tocreating a stir in class, all of which made me love my life a lot more. Nevertheless, when it comes to my English learning method, it would be a disaster or a terrible for me because what I learnt in those beautiful days was only about GRAMMAR and GRAMMAR. There was just one class each week for Listening and Speaking, which could absolutely not help my friends and I be good at those important skills. As as outcome, my grammar was really good at that time, and I got 8.5/10 in the entrance exam, but that did not mean anything, especially in such a world in which speaking and writing are regarded the most major skills that will help you get a job in the future and communicate with others.

 What I used to learn was all about GRAMMAR :( 

As I was saying, my grammar was well-controlled, but the other skills were awful and unacceptable. When I stepped into the first year of university, I was totally shocked because everything was different from my expectations. Now, GRAMMAR is not as crucial as SPEAKING and WRITING, and I totally fell behind my classmates, whose communication skills was much better in spite of their intermeditate level of GRAMMAR. After just one week, I had to sit back to my desk and to think about how I could change everything, how I could improve my skills. After several days, I decided to take a course of communication at AMA English Center. Actually, I did learn two communication courses, with each one lasting three months, after which my proficiency in English was partly enhanced but not enough for a big battle :))) and that is when I came to IELTS that completely changed my life. 

                                                                   To be continued.....