IELTS Writing Task, part 2: Strategy

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Hello everyone! This is Dori, I am a teacher of English and today we will focus on IELTS

Academic Writing Task 2. Ok, the first thing you should do is read the first part in bold

because this will be the main topic of your essay. Then it will be very good to underline

key-words in this part of your main topic. These key-words are the important points that

you need to consider while you write your essay. So, let's see an example. So, let's

read our instructions and our topic. This is our main topic the first bold part I was

talking about let's read it. So, this is our topic, it is a statement that expresses a

certain opinion and usually a bold opinion. So, let's underline key-words we need to consider

in the first part of the topic. First of all, the main topic this is our theme, it is about

TV advertisements, it is obvious so we underline that. TV.advertisements doing what? Aimed

at young children.What do they do, these advertisements, aimed at young children? They are far too

many nowadays. So, we can underline too many, you understand that. So, what needs to be

done? What's the problem? Some people think that these advertisements should be forbidden.

These are the main key-points of the theme of the subject of the topic ok? so we underline

these. Then, you will read the question in bold, this question tells you what you need

to do with the topic. In this case, in our example, they ask you if you agree or disagree

so you have to say your own personal opinion so let's have a look at it! Now the second

bold part this is the question, so in this case you should express your own personal

opinion on the subject this what the essay asks you to do. But you shouldn't be afraid

of that 'cause I will give you ways in following videos to state an opinion even if you don't

have one. However, in this case, I believe that you may have a lot of things to say anyway,

this is the question! In the end be careful, because you are going to see something like

that: So at the end of the task you will see something like that: So, here what do we need?

For every argument we make, for every opinion we express we need to provide reasons and

we need to provide examples in order to justify it and better explain it. This is crucial.

If you don't include reasons and examples in your essay you will lose marks. Of course

you have to do this effectively and in an organised way. As you can see, in this task

we're not going to be given any information as we were in task 1, in task 2 we have to

provide our own ideas and our own examples and of course we have to be able to justify

them . First of all, we need to be very organised in order to avoid the common problem of stating

random ideas and examples here and there without any connection with each other and without

any cohesion. So, now do you remember the keywords we underlined in our main topic?

Now, it is the time to use them in order to create our first paragraph which is our introduction!

So, in your introduction you need to paraphrase the main topic statement and that's it! Of

course you can also state your own personal opinion if you already know that but since

you are going to do that in your conclusion anyway I would suggest that in your introduction

just paraphrase the main topic. Let's see the example! Ok, so in paraphrasing we use

different words in order to describe the same thing so let's see... So, the underlined key-words

here are going to be our paraphrasing guide. What do we do? First of all we need an opening

phrase, an opening expression in order to help us get started, ok? So, advertisement

is our main theme, something probably happens generally with advertisements nowadays, ok,

so we can start by saying of course you can say "at present" you can say "nowadays" you

can choose any phrase you like but let's use this one in our example. So, what? advertisements

- far too many yes? So, we care about TV because it is stated here. This is something that

happens generally in our world and we use this as an opening line to state that advertisements

are far too many nowadays in different words. Of course, advertisements cannot be paraphrased

so we leave it as is. We move on in order to say something about young children. So,

we make the generalisation over here a little bit more specific. we become more specific,

paraphrased of course young children ok it cannot be really paraphrased so we might leave

it as it is, it doesn't matter. Now, we need the result we need to say what is the problem

with that. In our main topic the problem is that some people think they should be forbidden.

This is what we are going to write as well. The result of all this- situation. Instead

of be forbidden. That's it! Some words cannot be paraphrased and they shouldn't in order

to make it more complex but this is what you need actually and here it is. Your introduction

is ready. As you can see we can say exactly the same thing with different words the only

thing we need to do is to elaborate a little bit on the topic so as to form a paragraph

of 4-5 lines, ok? Again, this is just an example, this is my way of writing I do not ask you

to immitate my way of writing not at all! I'm asking you to use this way of thinking

as a guide in order to write in your own personal way. If you practice enough with underlining

and paraphrasing it will be very quickly, you will write very quickly and you do not

have to worry about paraphrasing introductions again. Now that our introduction is ready

to go, we need two more paragraphs that will comprise the main body of our essay and a

conclusion. So, what are we going to write in these two paragraphs? Well, time to brainstorm

a little bit! Just think of as many ideas as you can either for or against the topic

statement and write them down in notes very quickly. At this point don't think if these

ideas are good or bad please do not judge yourself. Just write as many as you can think

of. Your notes could look like this! Ok, here we have two columns of notes that agree with

the main topic that advertisements should be forbidden and we have these opinions that

disagree with the main topic about saying that they shouldn't be forbidden actually,

ok? So, these are just random notes, of course you are not going to draw a table or anything

like that, write these down as they come in your mind, ok? so we have some opinions about

agreeing. They educate children in order to be consuming citizens which is always a bad

thing. So, these are all opinions that agree that ads should be forbidden. Now, on the

other hand, just some opinions ok? stating the opposite thing. That's it! Of course you

may have even more which is great but this is just an example, alright? Ok, now we just

need to use these ideas in order to fill in our two paragraphs. Stay tuned for the next

video where we will do exactly that and of course we will outline the plan you need to

follow until then, ask me your questions and give me your comments here or in fb twitter

and G+ all links are down below in the description box thank you very much for watching good

luck with your exam!