In the IELTS exam on December 17, Gen Z teacher Phung Tien Thanh, born in 1999, scored 9.0 in the three skills of Reading, Listening and Speaking. In the Writing skill alone, he scored 8.0. The total score is 9.0.
Sharing with Dan Tri reporter, Thanh said he has had a passion for English since high school. Although he studied IT at Vinh Phuc High School for the Gifted, Thanh took the A01 block (math, physics, English) and was admitted to the international business major at Foreign Trade University.
Throughout his university years, Thanh maintained his love for English. He studied vocabulary at all times. Whenever he saw an English word appear for the second time, Thanh would try to learn it.
Teacher Phung Tien Thanh achieved 9.0 IELTS on the first try (Photo: NVCC).
“I know that learning one more word feels insignificant, but the truth is that after every 1-200 new words learned, you will feel yourself getting a little better, the reading will be a little easier, and that will be the motivation for you to continue studying,” Thanh shared.
In his fourth year of college, while having dinner with friends, Thanh and his friends came up with the idea of teaching English to make use of their foreign language skills.
From relationships with relatives and acquaintances, Thanh opened the first class with about 10 students. Students introduced students, parents introduced parents, and finally the class grew larger every day and became Thanh's main job after graduation.
Thanh has 4 years of experience teaching English. His students range in age from 6th to 12th grade. Thanh’s most crowded classes are for the 10th grade public school entrance exam and university entrance exam.
A year ago, many of Thanh's students wanted to study IELTS. Therefore, he decided to take the exam to get the certificate so that he could teach students properly.
Busy with teaching, Thanh did not have much time to review. He mainly reinforced his vocabulary and practiced writing. Thanh wrote about 100 Task 1 essays, data analysis type, so he did not have any difficulty with this part of the official exam.
For Task 2, he focuses on ideas. His secret is to prepare ideas for every topic he sees online.
According to Thanh, when vocabulary is sufficient, a score of 8.0 in Writing is just a matter of ideas (Photo: NVCC).
Thanh said that when writing about the topic of transportation, he read reports on traffic congestion in different countries to see which countries were doing well, and also read newspapers to see what policies they were applying to do well. Thanks to that, he had a rich and authentic source of data and evidence for his article.
According to Thanh, when vocabulary is sufficient, a score of 8.0 in Writing is just a matter of ideas.
An incident happened to Thanh on the day of the exam: his ID card expired because he had just turned 25. So Thanh was not allowed to enter the exam room. Thanks to his passport, Thanh was able to move the exam date to the following week.
On the official exam day, Thanh continued to have problems with the Listening test. Because he had studied 100% with paper books, Thanh was confused when taking the test on the computer. As a result, Thanh only got 8.0.
Disappointed with this score, Thanh decided to retake the listening test and spent 2 days practicing how to do the test on the computer. Finally, he achieved the desired 9.0.
For the Reading section, Thanh is confident that he cannot get below 9.0 because he has many years of experience teaching students for the high school graduation exam. Thanh said that he has never had to try to use difficult structures. To get the maximum score, Thanh believes that it is enough to not make basic mistakes and use relative clauses.
As for Speaking, Thanh relies on his girlfriend for support. He and his girlfriend have a "rule" that they must speak 100% English to each other. Anyone who accidentally speaks Vietnamese 5 times has to do the dishes.
“When we first started speaking, we made a lot of mistakes, but gradually our fluency improved significantly. Therefore, if you need to improve your speaking skills, you should try to find a partner like that,” Thanh revealed.
From his own experience, Thanh shares the secrets to achieving high IELTS scores. One of the issues that the Gen Z teacher emphasizes is learning vocabulary. According to him, students can initially learn Reading types to understand the questions. However, “plowing questions” will be meaningless if vocabulary does not increase.
A few months before the exam, students can do 1-3 tests per week. After completing each test, students need to carefully review the wrong answers, find the reasons and find a solution.
In addition, students should create an excel file to record all errors, including 1 column for "situation" (describing the error), 1 column for "how to fix it", and from there progress through each topic.
In addition, students should practice the habit of talking to themselves.
“When you first learn, no one will be willing to be your partner, but you have yourself. You yourself are a great partner, someone who is willing to let you speak 100% and never judge you if you speak poorly.
I remember in grade 12 I just transferred from block A to A1, but I also liked to say that on the way to school I always mumbled to myself.
Don’t be discouraged if you speak poorly, practice can change everything. If you can’t speak well, it’s actually because you haven’t spoken enough, not because you can’t speak,” teacher Phung Tien Thanh advised.
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