What to do with IELTS writing sample answers

How can teachers make the most of IELTS writing sample answers? Here are some suggestions from the wonderful Natalya Skachkova, my former IELTS student, a passionate writing teacher, and my first VK Donut subscriber - my subscription service with IELTS writing sample answers. Speaking of which... you will find links to some IELTS answers by both me and my students at the bottom of the post.

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Providing the example of strong performance

While doing the course «Prepare your students for IELTS» with Norwich Institute for Language Education, not once were we reminded about the importance of providing sample answers, both strong and weak. However, it is the former that gives a clearer understanding of what is expected of your writing. All the criteria should be exemplified by an actual work; otherwise, they will just remain elusive notions that can be interpreted in a variety of ways.

Teaching writing sub-skills

In order to direct students’ attention to specific features of a sample answer, we can perform a range of manipulations with it, whereby creating lesson activities to develop particular writing skills. What we exactly can do is:

Task Response

We can delete some of the sentences or add unnecessary ones and get the students to analyze whether the ideas are developed fully. One of the commonest issues with my students' writings is that they tend to devote one sentence to one idea, which is not enough. I sometimes ask them to find such «underdeveloped» ideas and come up with different arguments to explain them fully. We could also provide only topic sentences for the students to develop a full paragraph, after which they can compare their version with the one from the sample answer.

Coherence and Cohesion

A simple gap-fill activity where linking devices are deleted from an essay or a report can help to reactivate students’ knowledge. Depending on the level of language proficiency, we can differentiate this task by either giving the students options to choose from or suggesting that they fill the gaps using their own knowledge.

Lexical Resource

Sample essays can be used as a source of language input. We can have our students discuss the ideas presented in a body paragraph and then focus their attention on topic-specific vocabulary, supplying more language items if necessary. Another area of vocabulary that can be illustrated by a sample essay is the language common for a certain function, e.g. cause and effect language (stem from, result in, be attributed to, etc.).

Grammar Range and Accuracy

Sentences in a sample answer can be simplified in order for the students to change them for more complex ones. Again, the choice of strictures will depend on the students' level and the task. As a rule, most advanced learners use participle or relative clauses in essays confidently, while in Writing Task 1 we should show them a spectrum of possibilities relevant for different types of reports. For instance, they can be familiarized with the ways we use participles to describe changes in a line graph, helping them to avoid using simplistic «and» for this purpose.

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See, you can do more with great sample answers than simply give them to students and hope they will emulate them. Follow Natalya's community on VK to get even more IELTS and writing tips.

I write IELTS answers on a regular basis - and share them on VK Donut. My IELTS score is 9 (8.5 for writing two times), but I don't want to get complacent. 

2. "Some people say that advertising is extremely successful at persuading us to buy things. Other people think that advertising is so common that we no longer pay attention to it. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion." (By Irina Lutsenko)


5. "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?" (By Svetlana Demchenko)  


7. Writing Task 1 Academic: pie charts (By Irina Lutsenko) 

 
Image credit: Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

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