Day 01-05 | Environment

HOW 30 DAYS WORKS

Activity 1: Listen for the language.

Until recently, for practical reasons, languages have been taught in classrooms through reading and writing. These are biologically secondary abilities that are taught to us by teachers and not everyone is successful in learning them. By contrast, every one of us became fluent in our first language using our biologically primary abilities of watching and listening. With the development of the Internet and the wide availability of video, we are now able to use these powerful primary skills to learn additional languages.

Activity 2: Learn the language

An important part of learning a language is the number of times that you meet a word. To increase the number of times you meet new words, after listening for the language, you will practise them immediately using flashcards. You can mark more difficult to learn words as wrong so that they are repeated more often.

Another important part of language learning is knowing how to use words. This means learning which words are used together. We call words that are often used together “collocations”. Thirty Days to IELTS presents ALL target words as collocations. This helps you learn how to use the words for speaking and writing.

Activity 3: Write a summary

Even when learners do well in the Listening and Reading tests, they often struggle in the Writing and Speaking tests. To be successful in the IELTS test, you have to know not only language but also have ideas. This activity asks you to summarise the ideas in the video. This helps you to understand and remember them, and at the same time you learn the right language to express them.

Activity 4: Give a talk

The Speaking test is frequently a problem for candidates, particularly those who have learnt English mainly through reading and writing. To be successful in the speaking test, you have to not only be able to pronounce words but also show that you can use English rhythm, stress and intonation. These things are very difficult to learn through traditional classroom teaching. However, when you watch video, you can learn these parts of the English language by paying attention to the way speakers pronounce words and phrases, holding them in your short-term memory, and repeating them a number of times. This moves them deeper into your long-term memory.