VOCABULARY BUILDING: HOW TO BUILD YOUR WORD POWER

BUILD YOUR WORD POWER:

Building your word power certainly pays of in the long run. You can certainly use a good variety of words to use in the IELTS writing module. Remember, the key is to use the words accurately and appropriately (just using difficult words but inaccurately can cause the candidate to lose marks, so be careful.) 

Using a good variety of words is impressive and also useful, however words cannot be memorized merely by cramming the dictionary everyday or by learning them from other sources without reference to their usage because the words memorized will be forgotten as there is no cognitive support to help remember them. Confused? Don't be. WORDS CAN BE REMEMBERED ONLY IN CONTEXT. If you don't know their usage in real life you won't remember them!!

For example:

"GREGARIOUS" might be a difficult words to memorize and later recall and use in everyday life or even in EXAMS. However, if you know that "gregarious" is an adjective, in addition to knowing its actual meaning [which is: (for people) liking to be with others or (for animals) living in groups], you will be able to use it more properly in a sentence. Similarly if you knew its actual usage in a "sentence" you will be able to remember it even better. Here's a sentence usage:

• Jennifer is a gregarious person who loves to go out with friends and family.

• Lions are gregarious animals. They always live in groups.

So now you know:

• the word's meaning,
• what part of speech it is (it is an adjective, and adjectives describe nouns)
• and how it can be used in different types of sentences

RESOURCES:

So to learn words in context use specific vocabulary books like:

• English Vocabulary in Use by MC Carthy and Felicity O Del or
• Oxford Word Power Dictionary which help in learning words in context.
• Cambridge Online Dictionary is also a good resource

IMPROVE LISTENING AND SPEAKING SKILLS THROUGH DAILY LEARNING STRATEGY

Improve your listening and speaking skills:

Preparing for IELTS means improving our English skills.We listen to English at least somewhere during the day even if English is not the First Language in our country so why not make the most of it. Everyday learning, as emphasized before, must not be ignored and certainly goes a long way when it comes to improving our English Language skills. Here is one of the many ways you can improve your English listening and speaking skills through simple everyday enjoyable practice:

Like Movies? We all do. When you have finished watching a movie, do you like talking to a friend or family member about what the story was about, how awesome the hero was or how cool the stunts were, etc. etc? If you do, try discussing it in English. You will have a good set of words to use which you have just listened in the movie or more appropriately acquired in the movie, so use them. Don't worry initially about making mistakes, with time your expression, fluency and grammar will improve. Don't feel embarrassed if you are making mistakes, we all make mistakes even native English speakers can sometimes make small mistakes because to err is human! So don't hold back and give it a try!


If you are not comfortable talking to a friend in English (just yet) then grab a recorder or use the voice recorder in your cell phone and record all you saw in the movie, how you felt, how you were influenced, did you enjoy or were bored and what improvements could have been made in the movie. Save the recording and listen to it. You can retain the recording and compare it with new ones as you record more of your experiences and you will see that your speech, expression and fluency will get a good boost just after a few times! How easy and effective is that? You have nothing to lose in trying this technique so why not get started and grab your favourite movie as soon as you get some spare time! :)

Incorporate Self-Study Strategies into Your Daily Routine

Taking out time for study in the busy schedule is in itself a challenge and mere book learning though very helpful is not sufficient on its own. So here's an easier way, incorporate learning in your daily life! Some candidates might be thinking that how can we read a book while on our way to work or practice writing while watching a movie or listening to the radio. What candidates need to fully understand is that IELTS is a test of "English", so if you cannot practice the papers on the go, you can certainly "learn" English in many different and unique ways....after all, if you are good at English you can handle any test in English!

EVERYDAY READING AND WRITING STRATEGY

• Reading the Newspaper/News on a website: Many of us like to get our daily dose of the news. We all want to stay in touch with whats happening around us and around the world. Most (authentic) Newspapers or other News sources like news on the Internet make sure to use grammatically accurate and error free English. After you have read your very favourite article, column, or a stunning piece of news just put aside five minutes to jot down the main points about it. Prefer a computer over the conventional paper and pencil, go ahead type the main ideas in a word document. This will:
• improve your understanding ( or comprehension)
• give you ideas for writing (for example prospective essays for IELTS)
• improve your vocabulary
• improve your writing expression (sentence structure and grammar)
• save you a lot of time as you do not need to set a time aside and you will be learning while doing something interesting (like reading your favourite column in the paper!
• This will improve both reading and writing skills, talk about killing two birds with one stone!