PREVIEW OF THE 63-POINT CHECKLIST

1. Is the teacher(s) truly qualified to teach IELTS?
Most institutes hire someone who scored a band 7 and pass them off as a “teacher”. Or they hire some person with a BA / MA in English who can’t find any other kind of job. I cannot tell you the number of people with MAs in English who cannot even speak or write in English well enough. Ideally, an IELTS teacher should have a Cambridge CELTA or Trinity CertTESOL certificate, which are tough to get, with high standards for enrollment. That’s just the very basic certificate a legitimate teacher needs to teach English. To teach IELTS, you need to be able to develop strategies on your own by understanding the test. The British Council offers a 1-week IELTS training program, but trust me, they teach nothing valuable that you can’t already find for free online. A real teacher is made out there on the teaching battleground 😉

2. Do they create their own teaching methods? Do they teach specific, unique, easy strategies for each section of the IELTS exam?
Piggybacking off the first question, does the institute, or do the teachers actually create their own course content and methods of teaching you the right exam skills? Or do they just teach the same old boring stuff you find everywhere on the internet for free? A great teacher will have the skills to create his or her own strategies to help you get high scores. These strategies must not only be unique, but more importantly, they have to be easy to understand for you as well. This, however, is a rigorous and time consuming process. No wonder most courses only teach recycled garbage!

3. In class, does their “teaching” consist of merely reading from an IELTS 17/18/19 etc book?
Sadly, what passes for teaching to most people who call themselves “teachers” is merely reading from a book or board. RUN if all the institute/teacher does is read from an IELTS test preparation book… and also…

4. Do their teachers speak English well? Refined, clear, grammatically accurate, polished?
Most non-native English teachers have issues in their speech and writing that’ll most likely go unnoticed by you because…guess what…you probably make the same mistakes (which you probably learnt from school/college teachers). Do you want to learn from someone okay or someone GREAT? Listen to them: do they have a non-standard accent? Do you really want to learn from someone who hasn’t mastered the language, its grammar, syntax AND sounds? Don’t you deserve better given you’re investing your hard earned money and precious time?

5. How many years of experience do the teachers have in teaching IELTS specifically?
Teaching is a profession where one needs years of experience to just be halfway decent. RUN if your teacher (not institute, but the teacher) has less than 6 years of general English teaching experience and less than 4 years of IELTS teaching experience. With exam courses, a teacher only knows if their methods are good when they’ve been practiced, modified and perfected over time and through student feedback and performance.

6. Do their teachers make their own teaching process and methods or do they just copy the same low quality tactics and methods you can already find on Youtube for free?
You’re going to be shocked, but major teaching courses, like the IELTS Disadvantage, just teach you the SAME tactics thousands of YouTube teachers already teach for free. If you don’t believe me, email or call and ask me for proof. And this one’s the market leader…so what do you think the tens of thousands of other companies and teachers are teaching? Why pay money to learn something that is already free?

7. Can the teachers themselves produce brilliant essays under the time limit?
Most so-called teachers will fail here. As a student, it is your right to ask that the person who is supposed to teach you be able to produce high-quality texts under exam conditions. If they refuse, you know they’re no good. Any decent teacher should already have a repository of their own texts for you to refer to, so that you know what a good essay/letter/report looks like. If they ask you to refer to other sources, RUN AWAY!

8. Are the class sizes small enough to ensure individual attention?
Being one student in a class of 15, 20, 25 or 50 is the worst way to learn anything for an exam like the IELTS. Each person has his or her own strengths and weaknesses, and with class sizes over 4 to 5 people, it is simply impossible for any teacher to understand each student on a personal level and teach effectively. But hey, large groups mean more money for the institute, so why would they care?

9. Do they offer placement tests to tailor the course to the student’s level?
Or do they just accept everyone into the program to increase profits? A good course would not enroll you as a student before checking your current ability level, regardless of whether you have taken the IELTS or not, because the IELTS score actually says very little about your current abilities! Only a close, personal assessment of your writing or speaking skills will allow the teacher to truly deeply understand your unique and specific issues. An ideal course should be tuned to the student groups’ current abilities to ensure that each student gets a quality education. Sometimes, in the interest of your benefit, it might even be necessary to not enrol you as a student if the test reveals that you need more help than the course can realistically offer.

10. Do they provide additional language support if needed, such as grammar or vocabulary improvement?
Merely working on exam skills will only help you with half of the IELTS exam. If you look carefully at the IELTS marking criteria, you will see that half of them are based on language skills and the other half are based on exam skills. Working on just exam skills without any attention paid to language skill improvement is a recipe for failure. A good course will offer help with BOTH aspects, not just either one.