Irina Lutsenko

Pilates does seem to triple the price of any class it touches—true that. But we don't have to do pilates. We can join a club... Yulia did—and lived to tell the tale. The article was written by the wonderful Yulia Levina in my " Writing with The Guardian " course, but I can totally see it in the actual The Guardian . ✼✼✼ You do not talk about Fight Club (enough) Every Tuesday and Thursday, at 6 pm a 30-year-old woman drops whatever it is that she is doing and heads for a run-down five-floor building. There, she makes a beeline for a cramped and cluttered room that smells like dirty socks, changes into cheap-looking shorts made of polyester (the kind that makes this annoying swishing sound when you rub it) and goes straight to the boxing ring. Record scratch. Freeze frame. Yep, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got here? Just like all the other women I’ve ever met, I was traumatized by PE lessons at school. Subjecting myself to this torture again? No, thank you. A...

This article struck a chord. Instantly. It was written by the wonderful Marina Khudolei in my " Writing with The Guardian " course, but I can totally see it in the actual The Guardian . ✼✼✼ Who’s Talking? Finding a Human Voice in the Age of ChatGPT A couple of weeks ago, I needed to write a polite email to a colleague. As a non-native speaker writing in English, I often second-guess the tone of my messages—am I being too formal? Too direct? Too vague? Wanting to get it just right, I turned to my loyal friend—ChatGPT—for help. The resulting email draft was immaculate in both tone and style, and, pleased with myself, I sent it off without a second thought. When she replied a day later, I burst out laughing—her email was so eerily similar in tone and phrasing that it was instantly obvious we shared the same virtual ghostwriter. It was clear: she, too, had asked ChatGPT for help. There we were—two humans outsourcing the simple task of polite correspondence to a machine. That wa...

Do ideas matter in writing? Yes, they are the only thing that matters in writing. Well, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement, but writing is certainly not about commas alone. What is writing about then? It has somehow been established in the Russian ELT community that writing is all about language - grammar, vocabulary, linking phrases, maybe commas or dashes. But ideas - who cares? Well, I think ideas are the only reason to write. Why else would you sit down and spend an hour on this activity?! What is more, ideas are the only reason to read. No one reads for commas or linking words. People read for ideas. As a result of this erroneous understanding of writing, people tend to believe that this is an example of bad writing:  "It's important to protect the environment." But this is an example of good writing:  "Never has it been more crucial to protect the environment. Little do people realize how imperative it is. The environment - the world we live in - is ou...

I want to share an awesome IELTS essay written in my " Writing with New Scientist " course. The essay was so great when I first checked it that I had to read it several times in order to find something to correct or at least suggest. It's absolutely awesome now - it has academic lexis, hedging, a range of cohesive devices, a sharp focus - everything you need for a high score. The author of the essay decided to remain anonymous. Some people believe stress is such a detrimental force that it should be avoided and minimized as much as possible. Others, however, say that stress should be welcomed as it is a natural part of life and can even be beneficial. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. ✽✽✽ It is generally agreed that stress is an integral part of life, but there is no agreement as to what attitude towards it is best to adopt. Some welcome stress, claiming that it could be turned to their advantage. Others, however, feel that stress should be eliminated o...

I want to share a great IELTS essay written in my " Writing with New Scientist " course. The author is the wonderful Anna Skopina . Just look at the plethora of cohesive devices she used (I highlighted some to make sure you notice).  Task: Some people think that economic well-being is the most important factor for achieving happiness. However, others think that there are other factors involved in happiness. Discuss both these views and give your own opinion. ✽✽✽ Some people claim that financial well-being is of paramount importance to an individual’s happiness, whereas others are convinced that other factors contribute more to life satisfaction. I am going to discuss both views and agree with the latter. One view is that money plays the most important role in people’s quality of life. This could be explained by a certain correlation between economic well-being and the level of life-satisfaction, with rich people in general being more satisfied with their lives than poor one...

St Petersburg is not the kind of city you should visit for a day. But Ekaterina Kachalova did and lived to tell the tale. Her conclusion is "If you’re saving up on comfort and time, your impressions will also come at a discount."  This is yet another awesome post written in my " Write for Real: Blogging in English " course. Enjoy the post and scroll down to find links to more. ✽✽✽ Save up on comfort and time, but not on impressions - that was my motto whenever the thought of hopping on the Sapsan train to St Pete became ripe enough for me to reap it. The pinnacle of that particular trip in July 2019 was meant to become "The Legend of Love” by the Mariinsky ballet. Staying true to my motto, I booked a one-day round-trip ticket with an intention to cover all the bases - to see everything that there was to see in one day. The high-speed train departed from Moscow at an ungodly hour, but what I sacrificed in terms of deep sleep and sound mind, I hoped to make up ...

In exam preparation, there are three main stages of learning to write - and all of them address different needs. 1. Introduction This stage is the first step you take right after you learn how to write a certain task type. You think your writing is awful. You have lots of questions. You get a lot of comments of all shapes and sizes. At this stage, make your peace with the fact that the first two-three writing answers will be roadkill - they hurt to look at, but you can’t save them, keep moving. There are two important things to keep in mind here: - These two-three awkward first answers are probably inevitable - you can’t really jump directly to smooth and beautiful ones. But you need to go through writing those first awkward ones simply to get used to the tasks. - The awkward first answers are the case for any new type of writing. In IELTS prep, you will have two-three awkward line graphs answers, then two-three awkward agree-disagree essays, then two-three awkward bar charts answ...

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...

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 m...

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...

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 ...

  Have you ever tried learning three languages at the same time? Do you think it's doable? At the risk of incurring the curse from polyglots and other magicians, Ekaterina Kachalova shares her experience in this amazing post written in my " Write for Real " course. ✽✽✽ It was too much. I could not reconcile the hordes of Spanish, English and German words that lived rent-free in my head. They refused to settle down. Quite the opposite, they acted as if they were squatters littering a once neat one-bedroom apartment reserved for language learning in my mind. They were living with the constant fear of eviction. Only, I invited them myself. I was young and ambitious as many of us are. I would grasp at every chance to learn as much as possible, so I took a Spanish course on top of English and German that I was already studying. I was inspired by the all-too-talented classmates mastering five languages at once. I tried to be diligent, but I was exhausted. I tried to cram the w...

Most writing prompts in the C2 Proficiency writing test consist of three points. One problem I often see in students' answers is that the answer is three isolated pieces, rather than one complete whole. In this book review I wrote for my C2 Proficiency Writing students, I was aiming to show how the answer can be connected on the level of the whole text and be one complete whole. The prompt was written by me too.  An ELT magazine has invited readers to submit reviews of books for teachers. You decide to submit a review of a book that you read recently. Your review should briefly describe the book, explain what impact it had on your professional life, and assess the importance of reading professional literature. ✽✽✽ I am not big on reading books about teaching, guilty as charged, but when this book came out, I bought it on the first day and binge-read it in two hours. “Grammar Nonsense and What To Do about It” by Hugh Dellar and Andrew Walkley is not a book. It’s a rant, a rant about...

IELTS line graphs are easy to tame - you just go chronologically, so the description doesn't get out of hand. Information in pie charts, however, can be hard to organize because there are different directions you can go in. In this post, I want to share two IELTS pie chart answers I wrote for the same task. The task is from Cambridge IELTS 11 . The introduction and the overview are the same. As you read, pay attention to the organization and try to decide which description works better. ✼✼✼ Introduction  The pie charts compare the percentage of British students of one English university who knew foreign languages in 2000 and 2010. Main Body Version 1 The percentage of students in three groups grew. Speakers of Spanish formed the largest share in both years, rising by 5% from 30% to 35%. The increase was the same in the “Another language” and “Two other languages” groups. In 2010, the former amounted to 20%, while the latter comprised 15%, making up the second and third largest prop...

✼✼✼ “What is your name?” “Irina.” “And what is your address?” Little did I know these questions were about to usher in the happiest moment of my life. After the crash, all went black. In one big blur, I was carried from the car to the ground, to the ambulance, to the hospital. It was beginning to slowly dawn on me what had happened. The word terrifying doesn’t do it justice. But was I breathing? I was. Did I remember my name? I did. Could I recall my address? I could. Were those doctors around me? They were. The feeling of overwhelming, all-consuming happiness was ballooning inside me with each question. I was alive, in my right mind, being taken care of. If you’ve been in a car crash, you’ll know the feeling. Most people haven’t. They think they have all the time in the world, so they delay happiness. Happiness is to be experienced some time in the future. Happiness is to be experienced when they graduate, get married, buy an apartment, reach that goal, fulfil that dream. Not that the...

Last year I read a book called " Storytelling with data: a data visualization guide for business professionals ,” which might seem like a bizarre choice for an English teacher. Seduced by the word storytelling , I ended up reading a book for people whose job is to visualize information in the form of line graphs, bar charts, pie charts, and tables, so basically IELTS Writing Task 1 tasks but for real life situations. In IELTS preparation we always describe data. But this book gave me an opportunity to change sides and look at those charts from the perspective of those who create them. In this post, I want to share one important insight I got that can make a huge difference to the way you approach IELTS Academic Writing Task 1. The author of the book emphasizes that to visualize data effectively you need to think about two key questions - who you are describing the data to and what you want them to know or do. Even though these questions are technically not part of the exam, ...

My colleague Lyudmila Snezhanova asked me to share a book review I wrote when I was preparing for C2 Proficiency (fka CPE). And I thought, “Why don’t I share it with everyone then?” I wrote this review about a year ago about “ The Elements of Eloquence ” by Mark Forsyth, which I was reading at the time. There is no task for it. I wrote it to practise. When I was preparing for CPE, I practised writing in two modes: exam mode and growth mode . In exam mode , my goal was to answer the question meeting the time limit. In growth mode , my goal was to work on my language. In this mode, I prepared a list of phrases and/or structures I wanted to use and tried to use as many of them as possible in my writing. This review is the second version of the original review written in growth mode. ✻✻✻ Given that the title of the book is “The elements of eloquence,” it is no surprise that I bought it and read it from cover to cover, scrutinizing every single line. What self-respecting lan...