How to describe a natural process in academic task one.
hella that IELTS students.
I'm quite excited today because this is a recording that I've been wanting to do for a long time.
Most of the tutorials out there online and in -costs are usually about pychaps, barchats, flow diagrams and blindchats, not many tutors cover a natural process.
In this tutorial, we are going to do exactly that.
We are going to look at where to start in understanding and interpreting the picture.
We're going to look at what language to use to connect your ideas and link the stages in the process together that by the way is extremely useful.
will also look at how to improve your coherence, and I'll even suggest some grammar tips, basically just to help you improve your score, specifically we're going to look at the passive voice and the participle clauses.
Now just a side note, a good gold or a good north star in this i .e. something to guide you is that if you can, if you set about doing your writing description with the goal of the reader being able to reproduce a picture from your writing then you are on the right track.
So I'll just repeat that.
If the reader or the examiner could reproduce the picture just from your written summary then you're on the right track.
Now, a lot of students find this slightly overwhelming because it can look quite complicated and usually they're quite scientific as well.
Now they can usually, they usually include maybe the water cycle, recycling, I don't know, the cabin cycle, concrete making, heating systems, there's lots of different variations.
And you're not expected to know about these and you are given the vocabulary you need.
I'll go into more detail in the vocabulary.
What I want to say is that, if you're not very confident about science, about geography, physics, or glass making, I don't know why you wouldn't be confident about glass making.
But anyway, if you're not confident about these areas, you don't need to worry, because as I said the vocabulary is there, you need to focus on your ability to describe.
this is a language test and this is exactly what we're going to be focusing on today.
So step number one, we're going to look at the diagram and we're going to understand it and we're going to identify the stages, you need to be aware of what happens at this one what happens at that one, not only an overview but you need to be very clear of the specific different stages from beginning to end, okay?
It's a useful step just to reassure yourself of the key stages.
This will make it easier to reproduce your written summary when it comes to it.
If you're confident that this stage leads to this stage, this leads to stage leads to that one, so don't worry about spending a a bit more time just fully comprehending the overall system.
Now, this is an exam skill and if you do find yourself spending a lot of time comprehending what's going on, then you really need to start working on this skill.
So find just go to Google Images, do an image search online, go for Flow Diagrams, cycle diagrams, natural process diagrams, and trying to develop this skill of interpreting and comprehending what is happening.
Now, a good way to start with this is to see if the diagram is divided.
Does it start at one place?
Does it split? Are there any arrows?
So basically we're looking for visual clues and quite often in the natural process in a natural process it's going to be cyclical and it doesn't really matter.
I mean obviously it does matter where you start just be aware that there will be a clear statin.
Yeah, just to go OK, it does matter where you start.
With natural cycles, OK, we're going to have key vocabulary.
This will guide you.
You can use these words.
But if you can find your own words, or alternative words, then use those, because you're going to score points with lexical resource.
Now, a typical question would start with something like, should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The diagram illustrates the life cycle process of frogs in a pond.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant, at least 150 words.
Now this 150 words, it's a little bit confusing actually because on different official ile's websites it says different things like If you go to you can find official papers that say write at least 150 words.
Anyway, not going to go into that right now.
So I'll just very briefly describe this cycle with a frog.
In the left -hand corner we've got an adult frog.
Then it goes to ex embryo tadpoles, external gills, basically the development of the tadpole.
Then the tadpole grows a tail or a Lives from food started in the tail.
Okay, it actually has got a tail So that's the grow legs the tail becomes shorter we get a young frog then we've got an adult frog and then we've got eggs So we can see with these arrows now you might wonder where are you going to start with this one because there's no Number in place later we'll get there.
But what we want to do is be aware of what we can see.
So we can see there's arrows there Okay, we can go from the they take us from the mature frog through the reproduction Processed it's not shown, but we have to assume this and then the stages of development It's a circular diagram as we said before Although it doesn't really matter where we start, I would assume logical place to start would be either the adult frog or the eggs, starting with tadpoles developing.
Legs just isn't logical at all.
Aside note here, we need this skill that we also need for piechats and for batshats.
That is grouping. If we can easier to develop our paragraphs.
As I suggested we'll start probably with eggs.
Okay this seems the most logical.
As I said we are going to be using some of phrases, some of the vocabulary from this diagram, but we're also where possible we're going to be using our own.
Step number two, choose which connecting words and vocabulary you need.
Now here is a very valuable piece of advice aim for chunks of fragments of the language.
This makes it much easier to write and it will help you score higher because you'll be able to link the different points together more coherently.
Now grab a pen because there's an absolute value bomb coming.
Adverbs will help you connect the stages in a cycle.
We're going to start here are the phrases.
First stage. And we can start with the first stage is when.
A noun plus a verb.
So the first stage is when the eggs are hatched for example.
Another phrase. To begin with another phrase.
The process commensors with and then initially.
Initially, the eggs are laid by the frog.
Now for the middle stages, we could say phrases like this steps, This step involves verb plus ing.
This step involves hatching, x.
The step involves growing legs and some other words then wants.
After that the next stage in the cycle or the next stage in the process is I hope you're writing these down because they are very valuable.
If you've got the IELTS podcast app which is available on the App Store and the Google Play Store, then probably won't need to write these down because you'll have the transcript of their inside the app which you can use, maybe to copy paste the phrases.
Yeah, just copy paste them all.
Send them to your email or whatever, post them in a message.
But it's definitely worthwhile getting your hands on these phrases.
And if you've got the transcript then they're going to be perfect because we have a human transcriber.
It's not machine transcribed like you find on YouTube.
The next stage in the cycle or the next stage in the process is after the completion of this stage, the next step is usually, to grow legs or the next step is usually, to star food in the tail as we mentioned before.
Other phrases could include once a is finished, b is able to start.
Once the rain has finished, The soil absorption process is able to start or once the tail has a fully grown, the young frog is able to start developing into a mature adult or as a result of when as soon as and where.
All very useful phrases.
For the final stage, we can use subsequently following this.
Once the stage is complete, or once this stage is complete, the frog can complete the cycle and lay its own eggs.
This results in the process starting again, for example.
Other phrases finally and eventually.
Now as I said before, although the diagram will give you a certain amount of language, you have the choice of whether to repeat it or use your own.
If you can use your own accurately, then use it.
But don't stress out.
Sometimes there might not be a synonym.
Sometimes they might not be an alternative phrase, in which case, just use the one from the diagram, obviously.
Also, your ability to expand on the vocabulary will probably depend on how well you understand the diagram.
As I said, it's not an absolute disaster if you are repeating them.
But when you can try and use alternatives, for example, what could we say instead of frog, well, we could say amphibium, we could say toad maybe.
Instead of mature, we could say adult fully grown, I think let me just check the diagram we have adult frog.
So we could say when the frog matures or when the frog reaches adult hood, when the frog has become fully grown, for mating, we could say reduction process, a cycle for frog spawn.
We could say fertilized eggs and so on and so forth.
There's usually quite a few alternatives.
I mean, not usually, but in this specific case there is.
I mean, for tadpole, no alternative exist. It's not a word that we use quite a lot in the English language, surprisingly.
Now the third step what you want to do is plan and organize your answer so you can start with an overview using words to describe the sequence such as stage step phase then we need to be aware of the tense.
Tense is a common pain point for academic task 1 descriptions.
Now because this is a natural cycle and it's a cycle which is going to be repeated, we're going to use the present simple throughout.
Now a very important point, is that, to make sure when we're planning, that we're going to be using transitive and intransitive verbs correctly.
Some of these we can use in the passive voice, and some of them cannot be used in the passive voice.
So, this is back to the language skills, we mentioned earlier.
Also, make sure you form the active and the passive voice correctly.
Finally probably point that you're very aware of is using linking words and advertials that are related to the sequence and of course ordering.
We've mentioned ordering before.
It's up to you to find the logical stat point.
Final stage, the model answer, writing your answer.
Now if you have a pen, maybe you want to write this down and see if you can circle some of the key vocabulary, I'm going to dictate it now and if you hear a useful phrase, then I guess if you're in the car, maybe you want to repeat that phrase, it's just worthwhile remembering or at least making an attempt to remember this phrase.
so you can use it in your own description the next time you write an academic task one natural process answer.
Let's go. The diagram shows the natural process lifecycle of a frog from the embryo stage through seven developmental phases from tadpole to fully grown amphibian.
Hopefully, you have spotted there that I was using alternatives and synonyms, for example instead of frog I used her amphibian, and also I had a developmental phrase which I don't think was in the description that wasn't, so, points there for Benjamin.
Next time. Next paragraph.
Initially, the fertilized eggs grow into embryos from which very small tadpoles emerge and shelter under plants in the water or pond.
tadpoles begins life black in colour and it has a long tail and shorter body.
This goes back to what I was saying before about being able to reproduce the diagram from your text.
As it grows, external gills for breathing are produced, While subsequent stages, let's see, very useful phrase.
While subsequent stages, in his development, include a longer tail, and when this stage is complete, black limbs begin to appear, which allows the tiny creature to swim faster.
I'm just wondering if we're adding information then, let's see.
And how it legs appear?
I guess we are adding a tiny bit of information generally.
I wouldn't advise that, but I think this is kind of important for the process.
Let's carry on. The baby frog is nourished from food and nutrients stored in its tail.
And the next stage in the cycle, very useful copy paste, said it's there, and the next the cycle is for front limbs to begin growing, while the tail shrinks and eventually disappears.
At each stage, another useful phrase, at each stage the creature continues to enlarge significantly and changes in colour from black to dark green and ultimately to bright green.
Once the tail has disappeared, the frog is supported on the columns and continues in the final phrase to develop into a full, sized amphibian.
Okay, so lots of useful phrases there.
And as you can see, it's neatly organized there.
We've got three paragraphs, the overview, and then we've divided it up into two body paragraphs.
Also, there is no conclusion that a conclusion is given after an argument has been made, after an argument and we use the conclusion to just summarize or to reach our final decision here, there was no argument made, we were just basically reporting.
When I correct essays I very often see to conclude we can see da da da da da, and a summary.
You can put to summarize at the end, in this one we put it at the beginning.
So let's just review this description or, yeah this description that I just shared with you, you could hear.
There were lots of adverbial phrases to connect the sentences together.
This adds coherence and it shows connection between the stages.
This is what we're looking for, especially for band seven, are higher.
The use of vocabulary and Lexus connected animals.
This is lexical resource, not only are we talking about frogs, we use the phrase amphibian, growth, development, food, this variety of words, it keeps the answer connected and its precise and also we're avoiding repetition.
Also we've got a good use of passive verbs.
The BabyFrog is nourished.
As it grows external gills for breathing, ahh produced.
Basically a very brief description on how to describe a natural process for task one.
In this tutorial, we looked at the vocabulary.
We looked at the stages for starting to write your summary.
we looked at the adverbs to connect the stages, we looked at synonyms, we looked at planning, and then we finished with the model answer.
I think I was being quite generous today.
Anyway that's it from me today and if you need help with your academic task 1 summaries, then don't hesitate to get in contact with us.
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And that's about it from me today.
Have a great day. Keep on studying, keep working.
You will get there eventually.
My name's Ben Worthington.
And from England, from Yorkshire, I sometimes say Manchester because not many people know where in Yorkshire is.
But anyway, I'm from the north of England, and I've been teaching IELTS for a long time.
And when I first started teaching with it, I was struggling after years of persistence, years of correctness, years of teaching this stuff.
I found out unique way strategies, unique insights, which I share with you on this podcast and in the online costs.
So keep working, you will get there.
have a great day and thank you for this.
