MY IELTS JOURNEY

Once more I would like to express my gratitude for Allah, my family, my teachers, and colleagues who supported me whole-heartedly and other people including my students, friends, my followers who believed in me. Today I have more than single reason because I got my results on 5th of June, in Eid day, so Eid Mubarak to everyone.

Let me share my IELTS journey meticulously and provide you suggestions to achieve your goals. (Hope you don't mind my mistakes, but focus on the content I have provided)

In 2014, when I attempted IELTS for the first time, a wonderful teacher named Mrs.Hafiza had taught me and in less than 3 month, I was able to crack 6.0 with intermediate level afterwards. This result would not be possible without the efforts and best teaching of my best teacher, Mrs.Elvira Abdurashitova at National University of Uzbekistan. Then, I took a break, focused on other aspects of my life. Years later towards the end of 2018, I decided to prove myself as one of the best in my profession and took up IELTS courses and set myself a target 8+. Back then my teacher was my colleague Mrs.Nozima Uralova and she was also phenomenal teacher. Simultaneously, I opened a channel where I publicly stated my goals, and things I did to improve my English on a daily basis. To be honest, it helped me to be more accountable of my actions and more ambitious and I decided to share useful content for my subscribers.

In this link you can see one of the first posts in my channel, https://t.me/RoadtoIELTSuz/12

Over the last month, when I showed 7+ in my mock tests, many people bombarded me with questions asking how I have achieved it even though it was not real exam. They asked me to share advice, tips and books I have used in my IELTS journey. So here you go!

My general opinion about IELTS

First of all, you need to know that there is no shortcut to success; no magic formula for a high band. Internet is filled with false claims, so called 'IELTS gurus', countless videos and books that promise to get band 9.0 . My first advice is stay away from anything that promises you quick jump in band scores, or band 9 secrets. There is no secret in IELTS, and it is not a scam, it is legitimate test. Depending on your target score you need to have a certain level of language and know test, in other words you should know how to deal with all types of questions in all sections of exam. IELTS can be of great advantage when it comes to enter the university of your dream or emigrate to the country you wish to live, so take the preparation seriously.

General Advice

1. Plan your IELTS Journey clearly, and simply.
2. SS formula, Study Smart, and always review your progress on a weekly basis to enhance your skills.
3. Visualize, Believe and Achieve.
4. Get the result you deserve!

Therefore ask yourself what score do you want and what band do you actually need? If your aim is 7.0 but are not working with your English even 2 hours a day, then you probably can't achieve that band, when I started my IELTS preparation, I took a Mock IELTS (result here)to discover my skills which I need to improve and made the first draft of my IELTS plan based on many other strategies on the Net. You must be clear with your aims, I set no less than 8 and I knew I had to work way harder than my fellow group mates who wanted to get 6, 7 bands.

You also need to be realistic about your linguistic intelligence. I totally can not understand some teachers and centers who promise you to get 7+ in short amount of time regardless of candidate's level. It is absurd, misleading and at the end of the day the result that candidate get after preparing with those teachers fuels with disappointment when they can't even crack 6.0 in IELTS. In addition, "Google University" has millions of free resources to help you but it usually provides what people want rather than what they need. For example: I can search for secrets and tips to get 9.0 in short time from IELTS and Google quickly delivers, I become satisfied, even happy cause I got what I wanted. Students fall into this trap believing those "band 9" materials will help them, but in reality "Google university" or internet materials do not give what you actually need. As a result, one can stuck at 6.0 band even after several attempts and blame the test instead of concentrating on their language capability. You need to get 6.0, your level should be minimum 'real intermediate' level, 7.0 minimum requires upper-advanced level or even higher plus decent preparation consistently. If your aim is 7+, you should constantly practice language in a non-IELTS way, that is, by exposing yourself to practical, everyday English language. If your aim 8+ it can take longer than you think, you need work twice as much as those who prepare for 7.5 and study with real professional teachers and reliable sources. Set yourself a real goal, but keep optimism and work hard. Don't blame the teacher, IELTS exam and other conditions if you get lower score than you expect. You cannot change your future now, but those who harness their actions currently, will eventually change their future. Future is NOW, take ownership of your life whatever your goal is.

I have shared in my channel my action plan and preparation plan for IELTS in channel, (link is provided here, action plan, plan). If you have a good teacher that is wonderful, but you should make a plan how to spend your time apart from your classes based on your circumstances. Don't study only IELTS related materials, or practice non-stop, instead enjoy English, watch your favorite shows on Youtube, listen to podcasts you like, read books you enjoy and talk to people who supports and believes in you. If you expose of yourself only IELTS materials soon you get bored and gave up, in my case I listened to podcasts on a daily basis while commuting to my workplace and read articles from newspapers like "New Scientist", "The Guardians" and many more. I kept watching my favorite shows on youtube, documentaries, sometimes Ted talks, read articles of successful candidates from Net. To be honest I listened more than 300 podcasts in 5 month preparation, read over 100 articles, finished some great books apart from practicing IELTS papers. Moreover, I passed mock IELTS 4 times almost each month prior to real test to check my progress and I also reviewed my progress on Sundays, adjusted slightly my plans based on previous achievements. I wrote additional essays and exchanged with others to practice more, listened to model essays and read authentic model essays. Last but not least, I kept improving my language including almost all skills (grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation). I tried really hard to practice with books and materials that are reliable and those which reflect real test. For instance: all the books published by Cambridge University Press and you can't go wrong with Cambridge University Press books since at the end of the day, these are the guys who write the test! Follow this link and there is a great advice on types of books that can help you to prepare for test, they are not "FAKE" band 9 books. Stay away from unreliable sources. I will share the link for all those great books at the end of my article.

If you do not believe that you can get 7.0 or 8.0, then no-one does it for you. You must believe that the score you aim is possible, it is not surprising that only those with high self-esteem with hard work achieve their goals. I still remember going into exam room, telling myself, you are gonna make it, you have the power it, I even visualized what kind of questions may appear in my test, how I answered them, and guess what, I anticipated correctly type of graph for task 1 in writing too). Throughout my IELTS preparation, I tried to enjoy every stage of it and it was the same with exam too. Then right before exam, I went to the one of the best IELTS teachers, Bekzod Mirahmedov who helped me to enhance my writing scores and I am glad that in less than 15 days my writing improved by 0.5 band. Also I loved reading and opened even channel to share brilliant books for free, and did reading passages enthusiastically and finished reading test in less than 47 minutes. I practiced less in writing than other sections, therefore I hold nobody but myself responsible for 6.5 score. I am really content with my score and this is just beginning, if you thought I would stop with this score, you are wrong my friend, I have lots of other goals apart from IELTS and Inshaallah one by one I will achieve them.

Receive your outcome with pure contentment. Your hard-work pays off.

There is no better feeling in the world than receiving the result that you work for. Here you go my result.

Specific advice and recommendations.

If you've come this far, then I should probably give you by far the best free book out there! "The Key to IELTS Success" by Pauline Cullen. Study it carefully! Everything you find in the book is 100% accurate as the author is one of the earliest pioneers of the test!

How much practice I must do? What books should I study? How can I prepare better? This book has answer to all of these questions and let me give you my personal advice.

Don't practice only, because Test-Test-Test method takes you nowhere but it is infuriating. Instead try Test-Feedback-Study-Test method. A good illustration of this can be doing one full practice test, then looking back at test and analyze your answers, why you answered incorrectly to some questions, study them carefully by looking at the strategies from authentic Cambridge Top Tips book and then practice again, I used to write my results and mistakes in special word document which I took from "Key to IELTS Success". I changed it a little bit and it helped me a lot to relearn what I had studied before. Here are the links for these documents:

Review sheet to improve Reading 7+ link

Review sheet to improve Listening 7+ link

I have also made monthly goals, weekly and daily goals and here is link for weekly IELTS plan.

My monthly goals checklist:

My workplace:

One more interesting point, I was getting about 30 correct answers from Listening and Reading, then as I studied English, and practiced consistently, slowly but surely I started to get better results. At the end of each week, and month, I spent hours to figure out what progress I had made and then adjusted my plan. Bear in mind that you can't jump from 30 correct answers to 34 overnight, it does not work like that. I remember scoring 9.0 band in March while practicing at home, but next time again my score dropped to 7.5. In other words, f you get few times 7.5 band when you practice IELTS papers at home, there is no guarantee that you can repeat it in real exam. So I kept working until I maintain the same results over and over, back then I understood that consistency is the key to success. When I started to get 8+ on a regular basis from practice tests, I felt confident, my results boosted my self-esteem and I was ready to crack 8+. A week before exam, I scored 7.5 from one of the skills for some reason, but I believed in God and my consistent high results.

What books I have used?

I have practiced mainly only Cambridge IELTS books, countless number of handouts, videos on YouTube, studied language textbooks apart from daily listening to podcasts and reading articles. Click this link to read great article about books. You can see almost all the books in the background of the photo and practice papers in the foreground. Next I shared other books I have used during my IELTS journey.

GOLDEN SERIES of IELTS prep books

If you have till here, congratulations, I gave you what I got, what I thought you deserve it, If my article helped you in anyway, share it with your friends. Finally, if you have a goal, your actions should reflect those wishes. You can't expect one thing and take actions which diminish your capability, what you do today becomes reality tomorrow, Take responsibility of your LIFE, DREAM BIG, WORK SMART, and BELIEVE IN YOU! You are UNIQUE.

If you want to get access useful content and still don't know my IELTS channel, join here, best of luck in your IELTS preparation!