On December 1, 45 students of the 4th year of study of the Bachelor's degree programme of South Ural State University will take the IELTS exam.
International certification of students is one of the obligatory conditions for the university to participate in 5-100 programme, the aim of which consists in the enhancement of the Russian education status and entrance of not less than five universities – participants of the project – into one hundred of the best universities under the results of three prestigious world ratings.
For the majority of students, taking IELTS is a serious challenge as they study in the field of nonlinguistic specialties. They began studying a foreign language in accordance with the new model two years ago and last year they chose English as an optional discipline exactly for getting ready for the international examination.
What is the procedure for getting ready for the exam in the course of optional classes? First of all, it is an acquaintance with the exam format. The examiners themselves say that understanding of the exam format is a half of success. Forewarned, forearmed! IELTS has many formal peculiarities, the knowledge of which helps achieve success.
Second, it is the training of typical tasks in four parts of the exam (Listening, Reading, Writing, and Speaking). It presupposes discussion and utilization of certain strategies, which are specific for every type of task.
Third, it is a test within a set timeframe. IELTS is an exam with strictly restricted timeframes and every student who decided to take this exam should understand how much time he would need. For example, in the part “Speaking. Part 2” an examinee should speak for two minutes. There appears a question: how long do 2 minutes last? For this, in the course of the class, we simulate a situation “during the exam”, when a teacher not just notes down the time but records a student’s answer. A student gets an opportunity to feel how long he should speak in order to fit in two minutes. In addition, listening and assessing oneself is a precious experience during preparation for the exam.
Fourth, it is the communication with those who have already got the experience of taking IELTS. Teachers share their impressions and secrets of successful undertaking such a difficult task.
A practice exam will take place in the middle of November, in the course of which our students will be able to feel their strong and weak sides and understand which aspects they should pay attention to next days.