When people discuss ways to do well in IELTS, you often hear about techniques that may help, exercises that develop certain skills, etc. However, when when we asked Shiva, a native Nepali speaker who got an Overall Band 7.5 in IELTS with an amazing 8.5 in Speaking, he said there was one other, simple but very important, ingredient to his success. Can you guess what it is?
Let’s hear it from Shiva:
“First of all, I’d like to wholeheartedly thank you for giving me an opportunity to share my thoughts on your valuable platform. Needless to say, IELTS-Blog.com was a must-go site for me to improve and accelerate my language skills. On top of that, I used to practise the questions from across the world you put on the website. Writing essays and getting them corrected by your experts was a really helpful tool for improving my grammar.
I feel it is important to advise all the test takers to have faith in themselves and believe that they definitely know the language. Remember that the way you present it might make it look different. In your speaking test, just think of the leaders of non-English speaking nations who have to speak in International Assemblies, even if they don’t know English well. I used to think in my speaking test of the Prime Minister of Nepal whose English is poorer than mine, but who still delivered speeches in front of global leaders and media because he knows he has to speak! So, if your prime minister doesn’t lose confidence despite not knowing English well, why should you? Don’t worry about your accents and mistakes, but speak confidently on the speaking test.”