Speaking 100% English with his girlfriend, the "teacher" achieved 9.0 IELTS on the first try

(Dan Tri) - Phung Tien Thanh - an English teacher in Hanoi - achieved 9.0 IELTS on his first attempt.

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 particular, he scored 8.0 in Writing. The total score is 9.0. Sharing with Dan Tri reporter, Thanh said that 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 any time. 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 an additional 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 the fourth year of university, while having dinner with friends, Thanh and his friends came up with the idea of ​​teaching English to take advantage 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 expanded every day and became Thanh's main job after graduation. Up to now, Thanh has 4 years of experience teaching English. His students range in age from grade 6 to grade 12. 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 a certificate so that he could teach students properly. Busy with teaching, Thanh did not have much time to review. He mainly consolidated his vocabulary and practiced writing. Thanh wrote about 100 Task 1 essays, data analysis type, so he did not have any difficulty in this part of the official exam. As for Task 2, he focused on ideas. His secret was to prepare ideas for every topic he saw 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 looked for reports on traffic congestion in other countries to see which countries did well, and also read newspapers to see what policies they did well because of what policies they applied. Thanks to that, he had a rich and authentic source of data and evidence for his article. According to Thanh, when the vocabulary is sufficient, the 8.0 Writing score is just a matter of ideas. An incident happened to Thanh on the day of the exam when his ID card expired because he had just turned 25. So Thanh was not allowed into the exam room. Thanks to his passport, Thanh was able to move the exam date to the next 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 doing 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 got 9.0 as he wished. For the Reading section, Thanh is confident that he cannot score below 9.0 because he has many years of experience teaching students to take the high school graduation exam. Thanh said that he has never had to try to use difficult structures. To achieve the maximum score, Thanh believes that it is enough to not make basic mistakes and use more relative clauses. As for Speaking, Thanh relies on support from his girlfriend. He and his girlfriend have a "rule" that they must speak 100% English to each other. Anyone who accidentally speaks Vietnamese 5 times must wash the dishes. "When we first started practicing, we made a lot of mistakes, but gradually our fluency increased significantly. Therefore, if you need to improve your speaking skills, you need to try to find a partner like that," Thanh revealed. From his experience, Thanh shares the secrets to achieving high IELTS results. One of the issues that the Gen Z teacher emphasized is learning vocabulary. According to him, students can initially learn Reading types to understand the questions. However, "plowing the questions" will be meaningless if their vocabulary does not increase. A few months before the exam, students can do 1-3 exercises per week. After completing each exercise, 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 the errors, including 1 column for "situation" (description of the error), 1 column for "how to fix it", and from there progress through each exercise. In addition, students should practice the habit of talking to themselves. "When you first start studying, 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 when I was in grade 12, I had just transferred from block A to A1, but I also liked to speak so much that on the way to school, I always mumbled to myself. Don't be discouraged when 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.

Dantri.com.vn

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/giao-duc/noi-tieng-anh-100-voi-ban-gai-anh-giao-dat-90-ielts-ngay-lan-thi-dau-20241229000634171.htm