This is the IELTS Energy Podcast, episode 1505, three tips to learn vocabulary for IELTS.
Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English, downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner trained IELTS whiz Aubrey Carter and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.
If you are stuck with a low score, our insider method will help you get the score you need to unlock your dreams. Get your estimated band score now with our two -minute quiz at allearsenglish .com slash my score.
Where will your high scoring vocabulary come from on test day?
Today, get our three -step strategy to gather, internalize, and use vocabulary that gets you past IELTS.
Are you feeling stuck at your English level?
Are you sure what your real English level is?
If you take our free quiz, we'll tell you what level you're stuck at and how to reach your next English milestone.
Go to allearsenglish .com slash fluency score now.
That's fluency score, one word. allearsenglish .com slash fluency score.
Hello Aubrey, how's it going today?
I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you? Excellent.
Aubrey, how do you learn new vocabulary when you're learning a new language, like maybe French or something brand new?
How do you acquire new words?
Yeah. And I feel like I have done this incorrectly and then it's been sort of a trial and error trying to find better methods.
Right. I used to try to memorize long lists of vocabulary and found that doesn't work.
Right. I wasn't ever able to really use them in conversation when I was trying to speak.
Yeah. So now I'm excited for all the tips we're going to give you today because this is also how I add vocabulary.
A lot of the advice we're going to give today.
Yeah, I mean, this is a question that our listeners are asking themselves all the time but when it comes to IELTS prep, the, you know, the, the chain, the risk goes higher if we're not right the stakes are higher, they are higher that's what I was looking for.
Yes. Right, because for a lot of us if we are learning to travel we are learning for fun right it's the stakes aren't as high but for you, preparing to pass IELTS adding high scoring vocabulary is vital.
vital. And it is if you are making that mistake of trying to learn long lists of vocabulary, that's not effective, right?
There are definitely better ways to do this.
All right. So I'm going to go ahead and read the listener question, which was the inspiration for today's episode.
You ready, Aubrey? Here it is.
I took the IELTS UKVI in 2020.
I scored band six in speaking, 4 .5 in reading, five in listening and 5 .5 in writing.
My overall score was banned 5 .5.
My vocabulary is weak.
What should I do? Looking for your advice.
And this is from Hedayatola and asked in one of our amazing IELTS webinars.
All right. Good. Yes.
Such a great question.
And I understand that frustration, especially if you are looking for a sevens, an overall seven to be scoring five, 5 .5.
And sometimes you do recognize where the weakness is.
Aheada Yatula recognizes her vocabulary is not strong enough.
She's getting low vocabulary scores.
So I'm excited to dive into this today and to answer for them and for all of you what you should be doing to build vocabulary for IELTS.
Yeah, because sometimes the key to that high, that seven or higher, is just simply habits and what you're doing every week, every day to prepare.
We all have the same amount of time, maybe 30 days or 60 days but what are you doing how are you filling that time so in the meantime go ahead and hit the follow button right here on ielts energy right aubry absolutely we have two new episodes every week with strategies and tips for ielts preparation and also vocabulary everything you need to know about the ielts exam so be sure to hit follow right here on ielts energy all right so what is our advice then how can we find new vocabulary yeah so the first thing is you must be keeping a vocabulary notebook this can be online on an excel spreadsheet
it could also be a handwritten notebook whatever works best for you but we are going to give three tips today of how you should be using this notebook what you should be adding to the notebook because you might be tracking vocabulary you're learning but finding it's not working so some of these tips today you might realize mmm I should be doing that instead that might help.
Okay, let's do it. So, the first thing we're going to do is organize by topic, right Aubrey?
Exactly, right? And you should be adding four to five words for every 30 minutes of reading or listening.
If you read a news article, 30 minutes of a novel, you're watching a TV show, listening to a podcast for about 30 minutes, aim for four to five words.
You are likely going to hear so many any more words than that, that are new, that are unfamiliar.
You need to be strategic about which four or five words would potentially be most useful on IELTS.
And stick to that, right?
If you make a list of a hundred words for every podcast you listen to, you won't learn any of them.
That's why on our iOS app, iOS Android app, we only choose six or seven words in every episode because it's just impossible for the brain.
And there is a tendency, students want to know all the words but that won't get you anywhere because it'll be a very thin understanding of each word right exactly right and you must be intentional about which words you add less common words are higher scoring so often it's not even about you know extremely difficult words that no one has heard of it's just what are students not using as often so for example we'll talk about how these very common words like good, bad you know are banned for five because they're so common and there are higher scoring alternatives so if you're reading and you hear
an interesting alternative to one of those if it's not in your notebook that's an ideal word because it's definitely going to be used on IELTS.
Yes and when we're looking for these words we want to look for general vocabulary but also topic specific words and we want to look at what are the most common topics on the test right Aubrey.
Exactly right so you definitely need to be reading the news you need to be reading articles about the medical field the environment a lot of these topics that come up on you know all the time on IELTS because you must have topic specific vocabulary right so if you are just listening to pop culture podcasts for example those are not going to have the kind of vocabulary you need for the task 2 essays you'll likely have to write about okay so we're looking for a variety of input different topics different kinds of podcasts there is a podcast about everything it's amazing exactly right so it might not be
what you are the most interested in but for now because you're studying for ielts you have to be intentional about pulling in information topics lots of different things so that you can get the vocabulary to write about all of these things yes i love it all right so go ahead and add those four four to five words, no more than that, right, Aubrey?
We don't wanna have a huge list. We want it to be manageable.
What's number two? What's the second strategy?
Yeah, so these words you're adding to your vocabulary notebook, yes, add them by topic.
You need to have all of the most common topics for IELTS, add them so you can keep them organized.
But you want to add them in context, right?
Include the sentence you heard them in with a simple definition.
A synonym is extremely helpful.
and then immediately write another sentence that applies to you personally write it in a sentence that has something to do with your life or your experience.
This is going to cement the meaning more in your life and the context in which this vocabulary is used.
We're going to give an example here but this is going to avoid one of the biggest mistakes students make which is to learn vocabulary and then accidentally use it out of context on either IELTS speaking or writing.
You can't just learn words from the thesaurus.
They all have their own specific meanings.
Yep. And this will help you by making it about you.
I mean, we all have ourselves as kind of our point of reference.
It is how it is. Make it about your life and you so it's not just memorizing a definition and then taking kind of a static version of that word that may not be correct.
Okay. Right. Make it personal, right?
This will definitely access your brain box.
It'll will help you access everything else, you know, that's related to this word, other synonyms. So let's give an example here, Lindsay.
What if you saw in a book, right, you're studying for IELTS and you see she had a preternatural sense of timing.
That's a band nine word right there.
I know that's not in my vocabulary.
That's a great word. I mean, the idea here, based on the context, right, what I'm imagining the meaning is that it's beyond what is normal or natural.
It's something exceptional or uncanny.
Exactly, right? So that is the meaning of this.
And often, when you hear a word like this on a podcast, on a news article, you may need to quickly look up the definition.
Luckily, this is really quick to do now on a computer if you're not familiar with the meaning.
So you would write that sentence you heard it in, right?
If you heard on the podcast this, you could write that.
And then a quick definition.
If you know the meaning of uncanny, you can just write that.
But if not, write this above or beyond what is normal or natural.
And then you can write the synonym uncanny.
So it's good to have a couple of other words that will also help you when you're referring to your vocabulary notebook to quickly see the synonym and recall what it means.
But then if I were to add this to my vocabulary notebook, book, I would add a sentence that that's related to me.
Maybe I would write as a mother, I often have a preternatural intuition about what my children are up to.
So this almost means similar to supernatural, right?
Just beyond or above what is normal or natural.
And that just makes it so much more personal.
And what is personal, we learn better.
Okay. So that's huge.
I love this idea. That's a great example.
Make it something that you feel strongly about that really identifies you as a person.
Okay? Yes. Tie it into your identity.
Yeah. In a sentence that you might actually use on the IELTS exam, right?
If you're going to get personal questions on the speaking exam, so if you include vocabulary in sentences that are related to you, you might end up using that actual sentence to answer a speaking question.
I love it. It's so good.
do you know how much an IELTS exam costs where you live most IELTS exams around the world cost around 200 to 300 these days that is a lot of money we made this podcast so we could help students like you from all over the world prepare correctly for the IELTS exam so you don't have to pay to take this expensive test over and over we also know that you absolutely must be sure of your score before you go in for your exam.
So you're sure to get the score you need.
That's why we made our free IELTS band score quiz.
Find out what you'd get if you took the exam today for free.
Go to allearsenglish .com slash my score.
That's allearsenglish .com slash my score and go today.
day okay I'll bring out we are back now so we've talked about what we're gonna do right we're gonna grab four to five words every 30 minutes and then we're gonna add the words into a context that actually means something to us and our identities what would be the third thing we need to do yeah so third and most important is to use the vocabulary right away and often right so the first thing you can do is whatever you just read or heard, you're going to summarize it and use these four or five words.
So like imagine sort of a paragraph summary.
You could write it first and then say it out loud and include all of the words that you added to your vocabulary notebook.
Love it. And then we're going to use it in speaking practice answers, right?
We're going to start to use it in practice tests and essays.
Yeah, exactly. Right.
Because if you have a vocabulary notebook notebook full of amazing words you have taken all this time to add that vocabulary, but then you aren't proactive about adding them to your active vocabulary, using them in practice speaking answers, adding them to essays.
You will arrive on test day and you won't be able to access them.
You don't have your vocabulary notebook in front of you there.
You have to be ready with all of those cemented in your brain and that you have to be very intentional about.
Yes. Any other steps around using the vocabulary right away?
Yeah. So one thing, you want to keep the vocabulary that you are sort of currently adding to your active vocabulary list manageable.
So as you are mastering this vocabulary, once you are able to use words without referring to your vocabulary notebook and you're confident about it, you want to remove them, right?
Highlight, cross it off, figure out a way to keep that updated so So it's very clear to you which words you're still working on adding.
Right. And of course, as we're crossing off words, because we understand them, we need to come back to using them, right?
To remind ourselves so we don't lose them.
This is a big piece, you know, with online courses.
I think sometimes people feel like they might learn something and then forget it, right?
Later on in the course.
Yeah. Yeah. You have to be proactive about continuing to use all of this vocabulary right up to test day, right?
right? So then when you go to write an essay, whatever the topic is, you have all of that vocabulary at your disposal.
That's what you need.
So good. So between these three tips, this is the way to do it.
It's not magic, guys.
This is the way to use everyday consumption of podcasts or books.
Grab vocabulary words and then make them yours.
It does take kind of being a leader for your own learning, in a sense.
That's what's required here, Aubrey.
Absolutely, right? Right.
You're going to need to stay organized about it and be very intentional.
Right. So if you have found yourself making some of these mistakes of just creating long vocabulary lists, trying to memorize and you feel like it's not working, you go to answer a question or write an essay and you're not able to use much of that vocabulary without referring to your notes.
Try today's tips instead.
Change your process.
And this will help you add high scoring vocabulary to your active vocabulary yes i love it and if you're looking for a shortcut um we do give you a lot of the words inside three keys isles inside our course aubry that will get you that band seven or higher not all the words you still need a vocabulary notebook to build additional vocab but we give you some very high scoring ones that give you a huge advantage because the course was designed based on examiner experience aubry yes that's such a good point this is sort of a fast track, right?
Imagine this is going to take you a lot of time to be listening to podcasts, reading the news.
So you can skip some of that time.
If you are short on time for practicing IELTS, we have compiled a lot of these high scoring words with the definition, the example sentences that you can start immediately adding to practice answers and essays.
A lot of the words that are going to be useful on pretty much every IELTS exam.
I love it. So to get into our course, guys go over to allersenglish .com slash keys check it out over there and aubrey i'll see you back here uh later this week all right have a good day see you next time okay bye thanks for listening to ielts energy hit subscribe now and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglish .com slash my score Thank you.
