Irina Lutsenko

Some people think that in IELTS essays there is the "right" opinion, that is either the opinion the test makers have in mind (which you are supposed to somehow divine) or the socially accepted opinion that sounds righteous (e.g. we need to prevent climate change). This is not true. Any opinion works as long as it's argued well.  I want to share an essay that argues a very counterintuitive point of view - that too much time and resources are spent on protecting wild animals. The essay is written by my student Nastya. "You came up with very convincing arguments on the point of view I didn’t want to be convinced in," was my comment on the essay. She probably doesn't even support this point of view herself, but this is irrelevant. All that matters is it's a very logical essay that would get a very high score. ✽✽✽ "Some people say that too much time and resources are spent on the protection of wild animals and birds. To what extent do you agree or disagr

  In this post I want to share an idea and a story you can use with Outcomes Advanced p.105-107 (and with many other text books if you adapt it). Both are aimed at practicing similes. Your students will first work with my story and then write their own. I will tell you what we did, but you feel free to adapt the activity as you see fit. 1.  I was quite inspired by the photo and the task on p.104-105, but the discussion in ex.2 didn’t seem to be enough. So I asked my students to write that story. To make it easier and trigger their imagination even further, I gave them the following questions to think about: - Start from the content. Imagine the character and his motives. Why did he do it? Was he decisive or indecisive about it? What happened after - did it ruin his career or did it help him become a politician? What lessons does he want to teach us? - Choose your form. Do you want to tell it in the first person or third person? If it's a third-person story, who is telling it? The

If there is a surefire way to annoy a vegetarian, it's to ask them, "Why did you become a vegetarian?" I am no exception. I become annoyed when asked but for a different reason - I don't have a "why." I do have a "how," but my “how” is as unromantic as it is unfathomable. So here goes nothing. In December 2012, I was at a huge family dinner party celebrating my father's birthday. Everyone but my uncle was served the same meal. As my uncle was being served his meal, my father mysteriously remarked, "Look, Kostya, I remembered." This piqued my curiosity. "Why is your meal different? Remembered what?" I enquired, eyebrows aloft. "I have stopped eating meat," my uncle replied. This piqued my curiosity even more, so I spent the rest of the evening talking to him about this. I wish I could tell you that he told me a story of unimaginable inspiration, so I emerged a new person. I don’t remember what he told me. I remained

I want to share a piercing piece written by Timur Khamzin in my Creative Writing Club , which is a free project for people who share my passion for writing. Plain yet powerful, this story pierces my heart every time I read it. Enjoy! ✽✽✽ "Fixing Starts With the Tap" “Today. I will fix that tap today,” was my first thought this morning. How many times did I ask him to do that? He’d ignore it, as he did with most things I asked him to do, but this tap - it’s a constant reminder of him now that he’s gone. I also need to play it safe and change the lock - he still has the key. I could still see the bruise he gave me in the ceiling mirror above our bed. My bed. It’ll be a while till I like my reflection again, but the bruise has nothing to do with it. Why did I not finish it earlier? Why would I ever let anyone treat me like a doormat? I was lingering in the bed, slow to get out as has become my habit, looking blankly at my own reflection as if looking for an answer and knowing

Coherence and cohesion Coherence is the logical unity of ideas. Cohesion is the linguistic ways of achieving that. I’ll give a couple of absurd examples to illustrate the concepts: Pure cohesion : "I like apples. This leads to my passion for writing. Additionally, hedgehogs are cute." The cohesion is there - this leads to and additionally . But the coherence isn’t - there is zero connection between ideas. Pure coherence : "I like apples. I find pears delicious." The ideas are connected - I talk about two types of food I like. But there is no linguistic marker to unite them, so they look isolated. Ideally, coherence and cohesion must work together: "I like apples. I also find pears delicious." Cohesion is easy because it’s noticeable - you have an actual word or phrase that will unite your ideas into one whole. But cohesion must support coherence, not substitute it. If your ideas are not logically connected on the level of ideas, no cohesion will save them

I am thrilled to share an article written by my C2 Proficiency student Ekaterina Glukhova . I am thrilled not because she wrote an excellent exam answer, but because her article reads like a real article you might find in a real magazine. My philosophy is even when you write an exam answer, imagine real readers and write it for them, not just for the teacher. Ekaterina writes about her homestay experience in Brighton. Have you been to the UK? What was your accommodation like? Prompt: A magazine is running a series on unusual accommodation. You decide to write an article in which you briefly describe an unusual place you stayed at and explain why you enjoyed or didn’t enjoy staying there. You should also discuss how much the choice of accommodation to stay at can contribute to the overall impression of the trip. Why homestay?  Chalk cliffs, salty breeze, merrily jingling rides - yes, the good old Brighton, a seaside residence of George IV and mine, if only for a fortnight. And yet my “q

Comma splice I feel compelled to write this post because I find myself correcting and explaining this mistake over and over again. The mistake is so common it has a special name - comma splice. Comma splice is joining two independent sentences with a comma. For example, "I liked the bag, I bought it." This is wrong because commas don't join sentences. Conjunctions do. You could write, "I liked the bag, so I bought it," or "I bought the bag because I liked it." So and because are conjunctions. They join the sentences. Comma splice is child's play.  Not so fast. Look at these sentences and think to yourself if they are correct. Universities give theoretical knowledge, therefore graduates suffer from a lack of real work experience. Young people want to look older, thus they copy adults’ behavior. This research needs to be done urgently, however, it requires a vast amount of money. They are also examples of a comma splice. "How come?!" you

Can you make a finger-licking dinner dish out of cauliflower or broccoli? Olga can and is sharing her secret recipe with all of us.  Olga wrote this post in my " Write for Real: Blogging in English " course. I love it because it's a perfect combination of practical and personal: it's a real recipe told through the lens of Olga's sweet personality. ✽✽✽ "I thought you couldn’t even make a decent brew," my cousin said, sipping tea whilst helping herself to a second serving of my signature cauliflower cheese. Actually, I CAN make a nice cup of tea as I had quite an extensive training in all sorts of tea leaves and milk- to-brew ratios when working for my English boss and much more but… There are just certain skills that one wouldn’t casually share. Otherwise you would all be calling me all the time to ask how many lemons to put into a lemon cake. I do sometimes embrace my inner Jamie Oliver, though I am perfectly happy to keep everyone disillusioned abou

My Creative Writing Contest "Mayonnaise" has come to its inevitable end, which is good because I can finally share the amazing stories by the amazing winners! The prompt for the contest was simple: Write a story that ends with the word "Mayonnaise." I am beyond thrilled to present another winner Natalia Larchenko . Her story is wonderfully weird, which was what helped her win. Don't be afraid to be weird and enjoy the story! ✽✽✽ How to fail (the IELTS exam) How can a regular city slicker blend in with seasoned farmers? This was the question that I started to mull over about two months ago when I first learned that my late uncle had been kind enough to have bequeathed me his splendid mansion out in the sticks. I visited the place only once before making a final decision of moving in. After all, it was easy to fall in love with peaceful walks in the dappled shade of trees, while listening to their rustle in the wind. Much more soothing than a rustle of bank notes

My Creative Writing Contest "Mayonnaise" has come to its inevitable end, which is good because I can finally share the amazing stories by the amazing winners! The prompt for the contest was simple: Write a story that ends with the word "Mayonnaise." I am beyond thrilled to present another winner Vera Novikova . Her approach stood out immediately - she wrote a poem! Enjoy (and don't forget to change your password)! ✽✽✽ Etude If you reveal your secrets to the wind,  you should not blame the wind for  revealing them to the trees. Khalil Gibran Prelude A really gifted writer Would start by setting context To make her story brighter, Way vivid and more honest. My piece will lack specifics, Agenda and the looks. No Pulitzer Scientifics. A simple story of a crook. Overture – part one Feeling like a Sherlock Holmes In his shabby study A man was roaming someone’s home Alone, without a buddy. What was he searching in that place? A proof? A photo? Files? Perhaps, adulter

My Creative Writing Contest "Mayonnaise" has come to its inevitable end, which is good because I can finally share the amazing stories by the amazing winners! The prompt for the contest was simple: Write a story that ends with the word "Mayonnaise." I am beyond thrilled to present another winner  Evgenia Karabatova and share her story "To hell with mayonnaise." See her interpretation of the prompt and enjoy her story! ✽✽✽ To hell with mayonnaise He flinched when she said he couldn’t have mayonnaise. You wouldn’t even notice it since it wasn’t a real flinch but more of a slight movement of his brow following eye following cheek following lip. However, five years of unprecedented togetherness taught her to detect any little change in her husband’s facial expression. She couldn’t miss it. At that moment they heard a loud thud from the nursery followed by a piercing shriek. “Bottle overboard”, she muttered knowingly. “I hate that game.” She stood up quickly

My Creative Writing Contest "Mayonnaise"   has come to its inevitable end, which is good because I can finally share the amazing stories by the amazing winners! The prompt for the contest was simple: Write a story that ends with the word "Mayonnaise." I am beyond thrilled to present one of the winners Elizaveta Zanozina and share her story "Hypnotized." See her interpretation of the prompt and enjoy her story! ✽✽✽ Hypnotized I stood there watching him pour down mayonnaise into a salad bowl. He didn't just squeeze the pack, dropping unshaped mass of yellowish something onto the chopped vegetables. Not at all. Instead, he followed some sort of a pattern known to no one but him. Sometimes he stopped to shift his gaze from the bowl to the packet in his hand as if calculating the force he needed to apply in order to get a perfect line of mayo. He was always like that. No matter what was happening around, he would always take his time drawing inexplicable

My Creative Writing Contest " Mayonnaise, " first ever, has come to an end. I am not participating, but I have written a story because I love the prompt, which was "Write a story that ends with the words 'Mayonnaise.'" I love it for two reasons (apart from the fact that I came up with it myself). First, it gives you a lot of freedom to write whatever story you want - serious or light-hearted, with or without a message, somewhat true or entirely fictitious. Second, it allows you to exercise your imagination because "Mayonnaise" can be anything - food, your dog's name, your nickname, your password, you name it. A lot of people ask me, "Why did you choose this word?" I am now ready to lift the veil. There is a book that ends with the word "mayonnaise" - "Trout Fishing in America" by Richard Brautigan . The author said, "I have always wanted to write a book that ended with the word 'mayonnaise.'" A

I want to share a story written by a wonderfully creative Lyudmila Snezhanova in my Creative Writing Club , which is a free project for people who share my passion for writing. Lyudmila wrote an incredible but also hilarious piece on a highly challenging but also fun prompt: "My dad gave me three life rules to live by: 1. (fill in the blank), 2. (fill in the blank) and 3. (fill in the blank). The first two were easy, but the third one proved difficult all because of a cheeseburger. Let me explain." Below is her wonderfully-crafted story. Enjoy! ✽✽✽ My dad gave me three life rules to live by: 1. Take time to snuggle your pets, they love you so much and are always happy to see you, 2. Don't pick a weak man, and 3. Don't feed or beat other people's children. The first two were easy, but the third one proved difficult all because of a cheeseburger. Let me explain. In fact, I am sitting now at a McDonald's restaurant with a green crayon that I've just stolen f

  Sometimes introduction to exam preparation can (and arguably should) be integrated seamlessly into General English classes. In this post, I want to share an essay written by my wonderful student  Olga who is in my wonderful General English C1+ group. The essay is based on two TED talks, so it turned out to be a great introduction to C2 Proficiency Writing Task 1.  Preparation It's not uncommon for me to use TED talks in class. But rather than work with one, I chose two talks this time:   1. Larry Smith " Why you will fail to have a great career " 2. Benjamin Todd " To find work you love, don't follow your passion ." The talks discuss the same topic - a great career - but from different perspectives.   I gave one talk to one to half of the group and the second one to the second half.  I asked the students to prepare a summary of their talk for their partner and a vocabulary list that would help them present the summary.  In class, what students did was t

I often hear people criticize tests like  IELTS   or   C2 Proficiency  for having nothing to do with real life. Well, I disagree. So much so that I have to split the post on this topic into two parts. Part 1. First and foremost, a universal “real life” does not exist. A farmer in Nebraska, a university professor in Oxford, and I have very different real lives. The farmer won’t write essays, the university professor won’t make Stories on Instagram, and I will do both. Second, exams were created for very specific “real lives.” If you go to official exam websites and check their descriptions, you will find the following: “IELTS is an English language test for study, migration or work. IELTS is accepted by more than 10,000 employers, universities, schools and immigration bodies around the world.” “Preparing for and passing C2 Proficiency means you have the level of English that’s needed to study or work in a very senior professional or academic environment, for example on a postgraduate o

I want to share a great essay written by my student Svetlana Demchenko in my IELTS Academic Writing Target 7.5-8 group . Topic: In the future it may be necessary for us to live on other planets. For this reason, some people believe that we should spend money now researching planets that could be a possible home, such as Mars. To what extent do you agree or disagree? Answer: There is a possibility that people will need to colonize other planets and, consequently, that some funds have to be invested in this research now. I fully disagree with this opinion for two reasons. First, the money allocated to finding another potential home for humanity should rather be spent on more pressing problems that are already harming an enormous number of people. Taking into account the ultimate aim of space colonization, that is, saving people’s lives, it is a considerably more plausible idea to spend resources on battling various diseases, eliminating poverty and other social issues. The amount of mon

Sometimes, very rarely, but sometimes when I read students' exam answers, I achieve the state "I don't have any questions or comments." I want to share an example of a C2 Proficiency Writing Task 2 answer that I like so much I don't know what to correct or comment on. The answer is written by my student, the amazing Anastasia Glebova . What is particularly worthy of admiration is that this is an answer to a very tricky prompt: "An international leisure magazine is running a series on comedy programmes shown on television around the world. It has asked readers to send in reports on comedy programmes in their countries. You decide to send in a report on a television comedy programme from your country in which you briefly describe the programme. You should also explain what it is about the characters in the programme that makes the comedy appeal to many people in your country." ( Source: Proficiency 1 ) So it's about a comedy program, yet it's not