Hi guys, this is Fiona from IELTS with Fiona and the Members Academy.
I'd like to wish you a very happy new year.
And in today's podcast I'm going to go through the seven new year resolutions that I posted on my daily tips page.
I actually had a lot more, but I stopped at seven just because it feels like new year has gone already.
But Whether it's late or not, these resolutions will always be useful for you.
So I'm gonna start with day one, resolution one.
And that was basically to only follow serious IELTS experts.
The reason that prompted me on that day to write this one was I just saw a Pauline Cullen video on YouTube.
And she just talks so much sense.
Just everything she says is right.
And she doesn't post every day.
I think she maybe only makes one video a month.
But that video is just so full of value that it's much better than just watching.
You know, YouTube shorts 30 seconds every day.
I don't know.
I just got so much out of it because she really knows what she's talking about.
And this one was specifically about vocabulary and what vocabulary to learn.
And she kind of breaks the myth that there's a, you know, there's a band four word or a band eight word, And she explains how those labels are really.
How can I explain it?
Those labels are basically for your comprehension.
So if you can understand an A2 word, then that means you're A2.
And then there's a B2 word and a C1 word.
And people get the wrong idea.
They think that they have to use that word in order to be a C1.
When I talk about A2 and C1, I'm talking about the common European framework.
You know they're not exactly the same as the IELTS bands, but the same thing applies, because what she's saying is you can't label a word with a level.
You can't say Or.
If you use this word, then you're this level, or you shouldn't use a word like and or but, because that's a low level word.
Well, she says well.
That's absolutely rubbish, because a fluent speaker and a fluent user of English will use all of those words, including the simple ones.
And she just has this nice diagram of a Lego word. dinosaur or something.
And it shows that Lego is made up of little pieces, the simple ones and the complex ones.
And she just, you know, she dispels those myths, that all of those terrible posts say like, oh don't use and or don't use, but or don't use because
And she says, well, they're just tools.
They're just tools to help you express your ideas.
And if you watch that video, she's easy to find Pauline Cullen.
Or go to my daily tips, you'll find it.
And following somebody like her will change your mindset, I think.
It's just different from following these crappy posts that you see on social media.
Not all of them are crap, but a lot of them are really crap.
So that is my New Year resolution.
Number one is to just to follow those serious people and unfollow ones that aren't serious, because the Google algorithm or the Instagram algorithm will keep sending you rubbish posts, if you like rubbish posts.
So if you unfollow them and on your email unsubscribe, I've done that.
That was my New Year's resolution.
I subscribe to hundreds of, you know, these people who give you a free PDF.
That will be another New Year's resolution.
I'll talk about that later.
But you know, you sign up for all these things just to get the free PDF and that means you're on their list.
And you're probably on my list.
So if you don't find my posts useful, then yeah, unsubscribe, clear your mind and just focus.
Find one thing to focus on, one person that you follow.
And I think in the long term, that strategy is going to be better for you.
So if you look at my daily tips, you can see I've listed a few people that I would recommend, and you probably know who they are.
Because if you're following me, that means you follow serious people.
So you're probably already doing that.
So try to block out the ones that aren't so serious.
OK, a bit more random.
Resolution number two.
This came up because I was helping somebody edit their work.
And actually it was my husband's doing a master's degree and it's his second one.
And he said the best tip for him is to always print out something before he submits it.
And.
Why?
Well, he says that when you print it out or off whatever the phrasal verb is, print it off or out then you just see things that you don't see on the computer screen.
No matter how carefully you look at something on a computer screen, you miss things and you see them when they're printed.
There's a kind of joke, isn't there, that the minute you notice your typo or your spelling mistake is two minutes after you've published it.
And it's true.
So, whether you've got a printer or not, try and find a way of just printing off your work and try it.
See if you notice things that you maybe didn't notice while you were typing on the computer.
Of course, you can't do that in the test, but that's not the point.
The point is that it helps you to notice things.
And another thing my husband recommended is to actually read your essays out loud.
Now, this isn't a language goal.
It's not about improving your language or your pronunciation from reading your essay out loud.
But what it does, it helps you see if it makes sense and it helps you see if it's logical and if the arguments are clear and if it flows well.
You might want to read it out to a friend or somebody in your family.
And even that reading aloud and pausing at the end of sentences might help. help you see whether it's making sense and watch their reaction are they following do they need further clarification are they convinced by your ideas are your arguments strong enough and and do they make sense so that was new year's resolution resolution number two print off your essay and if you want to or if you can read it aloud uh new year's resolution number three now this one's really difficult to explain and i haven't explained it really well i have to say i need to think about this a bit more but what it comes down to is this you know when you write an introduction to your essay, many people recommend that you just copy the question and use your own words.
So you're kind of substituting words with so-called synonyms.
Now, if you've listened to me before, you know that I really don't like that system.
So what's the alternative?
Well, the alternative is to try and think of the idea behind what you're trying to say.
So, instead of just mechanically taking out words and putting other words in, try to re rethink it in your own words.
So separate the words, if you want, from the ideas.
So, remember you, you could read a whole list of sentences that don't make any sense, because words in themselves don't make sense.
The ideas have to make sense.
And this again came from some marking that I was doing over the Christmas holiday.
And it was my academic students, not IELTS students.
And what they tend to do is, when they're summarising ideas from a book that they've read, they take the idea and just replace the words.
And it just doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
And the example sentence is this.
OK, let's say, for example, Fiona me likes getting pizzas, Chinese food and Indian food delivered to the house.
I don't, but let's say as an example.
So what's the idea behind that?
Well, the idea is that Fiona obviously enjoys takeaways or takeaway food.
And that's it.
That's how you would write it.
That is a good summary.
But a bad summary of that would be this.
Instead of Fiona likes getting pizzas, Chinese food and Indian food delivered to the house.
You would replace each word.
You would say Fiona delights in having Italian dough-based food, Asian delicacies and curries brought directly to her abode.
Now, I'm sure you can hear that.
How ridiculous that sounds.
Just trying to replace everything word for word, kind of translating it instead of summarising the idea.
Now, we've seen this before.
This is the example I've got on my website.
It's a task.
Two question about some people say that cars are the best way of travelling around cities, while others say think that bicycles are better.
Discuss both sides and give your opinion.
So what's the idea behind this?
There's always an issue behind it, some kind of problem or talking point.
And the problem here is that cities are congested, aren't they?
Because there are too many cars and therefore we need to find a solution.
And Possibly bicycles are that solution.
So think about the idea behind the question.
Now, a bad example would be this.
And this was actually somebody gave me this.
I don't blame them because obviously this is what somebody trained them to do.
It's not their fault.
But you can see how it sounds very unnatural.
Here goes.
Some humans opine that four wheeled automobiles are the optimum method of meandering in a metropolis, whereas other citizens utilise two wheelers.
I hope you can see what that writer has done there.
They've just literally replaced word for word.
So some people, some humans say opine.
Cars, four-wheeled vehicles.
The best way, the optimum method.
Travelling, meandering.
A city, metropolis.
While, whereas.
Other people, other citizens prefer bicycles, prefer or utilise two-wheelers.
It's just not English, you know.
It's very unnatural and It comes back to what Pauline Cullen said earlier.
You don't need these ridiculous words, opine, metropolis, optimum method.
People think that they are high level words, but it really clouds the idea of what you're trying to get across.
If you can get behind that idea and express it in your own way, then you will sound much more sophisticated.
For example, here goes.
Modern cities suffer from several problems related to car use, and many people believe that bicycles are a better option for travelling around congested town centres.
You can see that not every word has been replaced and it's really introduced the problem of car use in modern cities.
So yeah, that is my new year.
Resolution three is to try to develop that skill of thinking behind the statement or the question, rather than trying to replace everything word for word.
New Year Resolution 4 is only use idioms that you've actually heard being used.
Now, you know I'm not a big fan of idioms.
I rarely teach them just because I hear them go so badly wrong when they are used in the wrong context or You know, even a single article or dropping the S makes them sound kind of comical.
So if you've heard somebody use the idiom in real life, then by all means use it if it's in the same context.
And it's much better to use language that you hear commonly used, rather than these idioms that you see in these awful lists online.
And the one I've got an example of, it's got seven different ways to say shut up.
And they've got about seven and only about one or two of them are actual synonyms.
So when would you say shut up?
Well, it would obviously be somebody that you know, that you feel you can say that because you know them well enough, I guess.
So you might say shut up, I guess.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Who would you say that to?
You might say it jokingly, but here are the synonyms that they give.
They say shut your mouth.
Okay, it's quite rude, but then shut up is quite rude.
Shut the hell up is really strong.
You'd have to be really careful.
But then the next one, it says shut your pie hell.
So I think they've got confused with hell.
Shut the hell up and shut your pie hell.
I mean, the real one is shut your pie hole, but it's a ridiculous idiom and nobody uses it.
The next one, they say silence is golden.
Well, you don't shout at somebody.
Hey, you silence is golden.
Instead of shut your mouth, you just don't.
You say silence is golden, as a kind of cliche when you're commenting on oh, maybe it's better not to say anything.
You know, silence is golden.
The next one is put a sock in it.
Again, quite rude, bit old fashioned.
And the last one is shut your front door, which sounds hilarious to me.
I've never heard that idiom.
I don't think it exists.
I think it's wrong, actually.
Where I live, people say shut the front door means, wow, that's amazing.
So it's a different idiom.
So, you know, you can't rely on these lists because you don't know what the context is for them.
So a better example, I overheard the other day.
Well, actually, I said it to my friend.
I said, hi, Alex, in a text.
How's your mum doing?
Meaning, how is your mum?
She wasn't very well over Christmas.
And he said, oh, not brilliant, but on the mend.
And I just thought that's so perfect.
Such a natural reply.
Not brilliant.
Instead of saying she's not very well, she's not brilliant at all.
And that's what people say when they don't want to be too negative, but they want to get the message.
Actually, she's not doing that great.
But she's on the mend, on the mend, fixed expression, not fully recovered, but getting better.
So it's not an idiom exactly, but it's what people say.
There are idioms.
She's a little under the weather, maybe.
But in this situation, I knew she was under the weather.
So how is she doing now?
Well, she's on the mend.
It's a lovely expression.
You could use it in your general training letter if you're doing IELTS.
Where can you, I mean, IELTS general training.
Yes.
Where can you hear this kind of expression?
Well, just from your listening skills.
Has to be YouTube videos, podcasts.
If you work in the English language, then great.
Listen to what your colleagues and teachers say when they email you, things like that.
But just write them down and note how and when they use them.
What was the context?
Who were they saying it to?
Was it to a friend or somebody they were talking?
They didn't know.
Just be careful with idioms.
Now, New Year Resolution 5.
This is a really controversial one, but I think it's New Year, New Year Resolution.
Try something new.
And this, to me, is the most important thing anybody learning English can do.
And that is to learn the phonemic symbols or the phonemic alphabet.
Now, I know that teachers don't use this in class for a variety of reasons.
One, they don't know how to use it.
They don't know what it is.
And two, they have strong arguments against teaching it, because if you're learning, if you're an Arabic speaker and you've got a different alphabet or Chinese alphabet or anything different alphabet, then you don't want to have to learn another alphabet.
But actually you know most, I think most about half of the letters are almost exactly the same as the normal alphabet.
So things like f, v, m, k, b, t, d, l, they're all the same.
But there are a few ones that are going to change the way you pronounce words and they're going to change the way you understand words.
So I set you a task.
The first one you should learn, the symbol is the schwa.
The schwa is the weak sound and it's an upside down E And I think it's the reason behind most mispronunciations for English learners.
I've got a list there.
It comes from my 101 most mispronounced words.
And all of these words have a schwa.
A schwa is the weak sound, the uh sound.
So the first one is problem.
My students, because they're French, problem, or Spanish, problema.
They'll say problem and it's actually a weak sound, a problem.
Problem.
Next one is nature.
The a sound at the end.
Comfortable.
Police.
Ancient.
Asia.
Island.
Scissors.
They're all two syllable sounds with a weak sound.
So go and have a look at that blog and see how you would pronounce them.
Okay.
Resolution.
Oh, if you need help, I do have a whole course about how to use the phonemic alphabet, which ones you need to learn for your language.
You don't need to learn them all.
You just learn key ones that will affect you because of your first language.
But I think if you learn them all, it will completely transform your pronunciation and understanding, without a doubt.
I've seen it happen.
There's evidence that it works.
OK, New Year Resolution 6.
I hesitated about this one because I thought it just sounds so negative.
And I don't want to be negative, but I do want to be realistic about it.
So this one I called it lower your expectations.
Normally people say manage your expectations to be polite.
Manage means maybe you're expecting too much, but I think you should lower them.
And my reasons are only to help you.
I just see people get so stressed and have unrealistic goals about where they want to be with their IELTS score and how long it's going to take them.
So think about IELTS just as a language and from my experience of learning.
I learned French, so it took me first of all seven years of just one lesson a week in school.
Then I did like a four-year degree, then I lived in France for two years And then I could say I was OK, quite fluent.
I was probably band seven by the end, but not eight or nine by any means.
So that's about seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13, 14 years until I got to band seven.
And that's with really active study.
So I don't want to be depressing, but I think you're putting too much pressure on yourself to do well.
And I think you should slow down and think about your long term goals and think about just enjoying the language rather than obsessing too much about the test.
Because IELTS is a very, very difficult exam for native speakers.
It's a very difficult exam.
It's, you know, it's going to take time.
So either it's going to take time to get to band seven or don't aim for band seven.
Just aim for the highest you can get now and then work, take a bit more time to aim for the higher band.
So that was number six.
And believe me, I'm trying to be positive about it.
And the last one I'm going to stop at.
Number seven is to stop downloading PDFs and just putting them in the PDF cemetery on your computer.
The thing that prompted this was somebody joined my members academy before Christmas and the price is now 497 for one year for my membership.
Because it includes just so much.
It's just got everything.
It's got videos.
It's got live lessons.
It's got a private blog and a community and all that kind of thing.
So somebody joined and within two minutes of joining, they said, where are all the PDFs?
You know, really angry.
Where are all the PDFs?
And the PDFs are in each lesson.
So as you go through the course, you learn. each lesson has a PDF.
I mean, there are model essays and things like that in different PDFs, but you go through the course.
There's a reason for that.
If you just download all the PDFs, then what are you going to do with it?
So I couldn't believe that this guy had paid about $500 just to get these PDFs.
And I said well, don't you want the videos and everything else that's going to help you learn IELTS?
And he said, no, just give me the PDFs.
So I obviously realized I was never going to be able to help this bloke and gave him a refund straight away.
But we all do it.
I'm terrible at this.
I signed up for recently for small businesses.
They offered 300 small businesses, each one offering a different freebie or PDF, but you had to sign up.
So now I've got about 300 people email me every day.
Hey, are you enjoying the free PDF?
And where's it gone?
Onto my computer.
I'll probably never open it again.
And now I have to deal with this 300 emails a day.
It was disaster, honestly, but you know, it's just so tempting.
You just see and it looks on, it's free and people share all these illegal books that they've downloaded.
And it's just not helping anybody.
It's really not.
So what can you do instead?
Well, Be very selective about the PDFs that you choose.
Maybe limit yourself, maybe just get one a week.
Print it out if you can.
If you think it's worth it.
You've checked it and it's worth it.
Write on it.
Take notes, use a highlighter pen.
Notice the language if you're downloading good quality model essays.
Take notes, put them in a safe folder so you can refer back to them.
So do something to interact, take action, be active.
Notice the grammar, the collocations, the articles, the prepositions, etc.
Use your own gap filler, create your own gap fill.
And if you go to the daily tip where this is, then I can show you how to do that.
OK, I'm going to say bye now.
Thank you very much for listening.
If you've got any resolutions that you'd like to share or anything that you feel has changed the way you studied IELTS because you made a change or you made a resolution, then do please let me know and I'll add it to the January daily tip.
And I'll share it with everybody.
So thank you very much.
This will be a blog coming soon.
I'll try and do it over the weekend.
It will be on my website, IELTSETC.com.
Thanks for listening.
Share this with anybody you think would find it useful.
Bye for now.
Bye bye.
