A photo of a puzzle which reflects a challenge to learn vocabulary for the IELTS writing tasks.
Writing Vocabulary Booster-IELTS

A vocabulary booster, the depth of your vocabulary is essential if you want to achieve a higher score in this section of the IELTS exam.


The key to improving your writing skills is based on building vocabulary.

Memorising words and phrasing can be a gamble as the task requires you to have understanding. One of the questions often raised by students is how to start an essay. Copying the question or statement to form an answer is not recommended since that will not gain points. Below, you will find some vocabulary to help you begin the introduction.

Vocabulary for an introduction

Most people believe that …..
The vast majority of people believe that……

Some believe that …

There are no defined rules, but you can use the following to end an introduction as a guide.

This essay will discuss both perspectives
The following essay will take a look at the advantages and disadvantages
The following essay will look at both points of view

A photo of different shapes to suggest that learning vocabulary is a challenge.

Opinion

There are many different levels of expressing an opinion. You should consider the following:

I think (general)
I strongly believe that (Strong opinion)

Personally speaking (Personal opinion)
In my opinion (general)

Transitions

In the second and third paragraph of your essay, you will need to use a transition; this guides the reader to identify with a sequence. Consider using the following:

Firstly
First
On the one hand

The third paragraph is used to demonstrate another point of view, so you can use the following:

Secondly
Second of all
On the other hand

With every essay, you will be required to give examples. Here are a few to consider:

For example
As an example
For instance

The final part of your essay is where you are showing your audience that you are coming to the end of your essay:

In summary
In conclusion
Taking the above into account

At this point, I will say that there is more vocabulary to consider, and I have only shown limited vocabulary to help you get started.

The following topic is based on music. Based on a maximum time of 40 minutes to complete and a 250 minimum word count, complete the following task.

Essay writing task

Some people believe that working from home is more productive than woking in an office. Write an essay to express your opinion and where possible provide examples from your own experience.

PODCAST

Culture-IELTS essay writing task

When learning a new language, culture is a consideration. It is the topic for this IELTS essay writing task.


IELTS essay writing tasks have a minimum word count of 250 words and a maximum time of 40 minutes to complete.

There is no short cut for improving your essay writing skills. There is some truth in the fact that the way in which we speak does have some common ground with the way in which we write.

Learning the structure of how to write an essay can help you to establish a template that can be applied and this will save you time.

Types Of Essays

There are five main types of essays and these are indicated below:

Opinion

Discussion

Advantage/ Disadvantage

Solution

Direct

Podcast

Essay Writing Task

Some people believe that you need to learn about a culture in order to learn a language, others believe that it is not necessary. Write an essay to express your opinion. Where possible, try and provide examples from your own experience.

Work smarter, not harder!

Corrections

All corrections are done in class, so that you can identify with your weaknesses and gradually turn them into strengths.

Improving Writing Skills

To practice on improving your writing skills, we recommend that you become familiar with some of the topics that the IELTS board use.

Work

Family

Events

Entertainment

Hobbies

Travel and transportation

The environment

Culture

Art

Music

There are many others, however the key to learning is to practice with topics that are outside of your comfort zone.

Challenges

One of the challenges that you will find is vocabulary building, so to build vocabulary, you should focus on adjectives that will help you to describe the topics indicated above.

Watching movies on TV can prove useful to help with understanding but keep in mind that exam English can be more formal and focussed on specific vocabulary.