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Re-Working An IELTS Preparation Course

Paul Vaughan, Insearch Language Centre, University of Technology, Sydney This paper will be about the work which was done to rework an IELTS preparation course syllabus at Insearch Language Centre (ILC) in Sydney. The talk will cover four main areas: background to the ILC IELTS syllabus; the changes which were made to the IELTS test in April 1995; how those changes affected the IELTS syllabus and the decisions made to accommodate the changes; and how the decisions led to the organisation and structure of the reworked course. This paper will only be concerned with the Academic module, not the General Training module. 1. Background The ILC IELTS preparation course was developed primarily by Deborah Lewis in her role as Senior Teacher at ILC. Other teachers also worked on the program and consequently, the syllabus is the result of a team effort, but the main credit must go to Deborah. The syllabus was developed in response to student demand for a course which prepared them for the Academic module of the IELTS test. In the EAP department at ILC most of the courses are topic based, but it was felt that this would be inappropriate for a purely exam focussed course. The IELTS preparation course, therefore, was developed as a skills based course which concentrated on the skills and strategies needed to achieve an acceptable score on the IELTS test. The course was divided into four sub-modules in the same way as the actual test. These are: reading; writing; listening; and speaking. The course lasts for 100 hours, which at ILC is five weeks at 20 hours per week. 2. Changes to the IELTS test in April 1995 The changes made to the IELTS test in April 1995 mainly affected the reading and writing sections of the test. This talk, therefore, will not be concerned with the listening and speaking sections. No further mention of the listening and speaking sections will be made. a) pre April 1995 In the IELTS test up till April 1995 the reading section was available to candidates in three field/subject -specific modules. Module A included readings related to the physical sciences; module B was for candidates going on to study the biological sciences; and module C was for the humanities - including economics and computing. The paper lasted 55 minutes, included 3 - 4 reading passages and 35 - 40 questions.

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The writing section was divided into two writing tasks. Task 1 required candidates to describe a graph, diagram or process, and task 2 required an essay or argument type answer. Candidates were allowed 45 minutes for the written test; 15 minutes for task 1 and 30 minutes for task 2. The length was a minimum of 100 words for task 1 and 150 words for task 2. Both task 1 and task 2 were also field/subject specific, so the tasks were related to the candidates field of study. More importantly, though, task 2 was related to the reading passages. This meant that candidates could use the reading passages to obtain information and ideas which could then form the basis of their essay. In other words, they could complete task 2 without using their own knowledge or experience of the topic, though they could use that if they wished. Many candidates found this a help as they, in fact, had little or no knowledge or experience of the topics they had to write about. b) post April 1995 In the IELTS test after April 1995 the modules A, B and C were dispensed with, and replaced by only one Academic module. This module is intended to be non-subject specific and to contain topics of general interest to a non-specialist audience. Consequently candidates will no longer be disadvantaged by technical vocabulary or texts on areas they are not familiar with. All candidates have the same chance to understand the texts. However, in terms of the strategies and skills required to complete the new reading test there has been little change. the types of questions; gap-fill, multiple-choice and so on, remain the same and the strategies required to answer them are also, therefore, the same. Consequently, the ILC IELTS syllabus required little re-working. The only changes necessary were to ensure the practice texts resembled the new general interest texts in the real test. The writing section of the post April 1995 IELTS test, however, is considerably different. The time allowed and the word lengths have both been increased. The test is now one hour long, task 1 requires a minimum of 150 words and task 2 a minimum of 250 words. The writing tasks are also no longer subject or field specific, instead, all candidates do the same writing tasks regardless of their intended field of study. Although task 1 is no longer field specific and requires a minimum of 150 words (up from 100 words pre April 1995) the type of task and strategies required have not changed. The old syllabus, therefore, was useable for this task and so no changes were made, other than to ensure the practice tasks could be used to write the required number of words. The number of practice graphs was also increased to ensure that candidates practiced as many types of description as possible.

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Writing task 2, however, has changed quite dramatically. The number of words has increased from 150 to 250 and the time from 30 to 40 minutes. The most important change, though, is to how the candidates find the information on which to base their answer. In the pre April 1995 test, candidates could use the reading passages, but in the post April 1995 test, the writing tasks are divorced from the reading passages. Consequently, candidates have to draw exclusively on their own knowledge and experience in order to answer the questions. 3. The affect of the changes on the IELTS syllabus and decisions taken The previous ILC IELTS syllabus contained a considerable amount of work on strategies and skills concerning such areas as paraphrasing, summarising, and locating and re-using main ideas. These skills are no longer required for the IELTS writing tasks as the reading passages no longer relate to the writing. These sections of the syllabus were, therefore, now inappropriate. Consequently, it was necessary to decide how to prepare students for the new test if much of the previous syllabus was now inappropriate. In other words, what strategies should be taught and what direction should the syllabus take. It became clear that students needed to have strategies to enable them to find something to say on any topic which they might encounter in the writing tasks. The first thing which was decided was that all students had to be encouraged to read as much as possible. By so doing it was intended that students' knowledge of western culture could be broadened considerably and they would then have a base from which to approach the writing tasks. However, reading could not be the only strategy. Therefore, the decision was taken to concentrate on brainstorming, organising, planning and translating the plan into the finished writing task. The decision to concentrate on brainstorming was the most important decision for the new IELTS syllabus. The idea was that the candidates would be taught how to use the first few ideas (which hopefully would be enhanced by previous reading) to generate further ideas, and so build up a data set adequate to answer the set question. The next step, it was decided, was to teach the students the skills and strategies necessary to organise and classify their ideas. The organisation of their ideas would then be used to produce a plan, or outline, of the essay they were required to write. As part of this skill development, the way the plan relates to paragraph structure was also a major strategy which would be taught. That is, the main idea of the plan translates to the topic sentence and the sub-points become supporting sentences. In this way, candidates have the skills required to produce "what the essay will say" (the plan) and the strategies to translate that plan into "how to say it" (the actual essay). Naturally, the skills required to write academic texts, such as nominalisation, use of complex sentences, and correct use of linking devices were also to be included in the new syllabus. These areas, though, were already part of the ILC IELTS syllabus and so what was required was primarily a re-organisation to incorporate them with the new areas discussed above.

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4. Organisation and structure of the new IELTS syllabus The decision taken on what strategies and skills to teach the students meant that the sections of the ILC IELTS syllabus dealing with writing task 2 needed to be re-worked. Firstly, all of the material which was now inappropriate or irrelevant (ie. anything which dealt with using the reading passages to prepare for the writing, such as paraphrasing) was removed. Lessons dealing with brainstorming, organising and planning were then developed and the syllabus organisation re-worked to introduce these strategies and skills in the most appropriate way. The development of practice writing tasks was considered to be of paramount importance. This was because the ideas, skills and strategies had to be introduced in context not in isolation. Students needed to be able to understand how these skills and strategies could actually be used to produce useful texts (ie. adequate answers). Consequently, great care was taken to develop practice tasks which covered the range of question types which it was anticipated would be in the real test. The lessons also progressed in a systematic way from group work to individual work. The early lessons concentrated on the whole group, plus the teacher, developing plans together. This enables students to see how one idea can generate more ideas. As the course progresses the individual student is expected to generate more and more of the ideas by him/her self. In the last few lessons the candidates are entirely on their own and have to produce complete essays with no help. Model essays are used extensively throughout the course to show the students how the brainstorm leads to a plan, and how the plan leads to the finished written product. 5. Conclusion In conclusion, changes in the post April 1995 IELTS test are primarily to writing task 2. In response to the changes it was decided that the ILC IELTS syllabus should concentrate on brainstorming, organising and planning as the main skills and strategies which would enable students to achieve their desired band score in the writing test. In order to teach these skills and strategies, lessons were developed to introduce them through carefully constructed practice writing tasks. The lessons also gradually increase the individual students role in producing plans and writing complete essays. In this way it is hoped that best practice in IELTS preparation has been achieved.