IELTS Live - Writing Task 2 - Structure and Strategy

hi students and welcome to today's live IELTS class my name is Adrian and I'm streaming to you from beautiful Hungary in the Carpathian Basin I hope everybody had a good week and looking forward to a safe healthy and productive weekend in this class students we are looking at a task to writing question we're focusing on some good structure and strategy to get those good band scores or high band scores in the allotted 40-minute time frame while we wait for some more of your peers this lesson is presented to you by AE help comm for academic IELTS help check us out there for general IELTS check us out at G IELTS help comm that's general Al's help.com on both of our websites we have loads and loads of great materials for you this is our academic website here with the blue background click that big red button to join the Premium Package get access to our HD videos no ads on those videos of course as well as original practice exams and a fully interactive course you have that in general IELTS as well by clicking that big red button there and both of our websites are supported by apps from your Google Play and Apple app stores just search for academic IELTS help you can link that to your a help comm account and general IELTS help you can link that to your GLX help comm account of course you can try the apps and the websites for free so that's some good news there hi muck sued and hello other members I saw lots of you joining in earlier in the chat that's fantastic if you have questions students about our products or the exam send me an email Adrian at AE help calm hi roshni hi Preity get to see more members hi drew hi rahman deep nice to see some regular students in the class as well again tasks to today and then tomorrow we will have a question and answer session for members so if you're a channel member please have your questions ready for tomorrow's class and I will do my utmost to give you some sound answers for those enquiries and of course we will have one more class for all chat speaking part three for everyone that will be tomorrow also alright students so here we go with today's task - question step number one when you get to the task - writing is read the question carefully one of the most common mistakes still today for IELTS students is they write an essay that does not accurately answer the question and it really is painful for examiner's like myself to give a student with good English AB and five point five or six because their essay is off topic so please read the question carefully let's do that now together there we go so you should spend 40 minutes on this task definitely spend 40 minutes on the task what are the advantages and disadvantages of wearing masks during a contagious outbreak discuss both and give your own opinion all right so I thought I'd choose another kind of hot topic for today's context okay firstly let's paraphrase this now somebody asked me on the YouTube channel why do we paraphrase if I don't necessarily put the paraphrase into the essay well you paraphrase for number one to make sure you understand the question accurately paraphrasing is the best technique to double-check that you understand what you are writing about so make sure to paraphrase and number two paraphrasing helps you collect useful vocabulary and gets you thinking more deeply about the question so while you paraphrase and think of other ways to ask that question your brain starts to work on the information so that's why it's a good idea to paraphrase and sometimes you can use the paraphrase in your background oh hi Alex from Russia welcome aboard alright everyone so paraphrase this question and rewrite it in your own words I'm going to do the same and then we'll get cracking on the planning of task two so here we go it's what a short question so especially something like this it's easy to paraphrase and we put that into quotation marks easy to paraphrase so what are the benefits and deficits of putting a face mask on while there is a viral or bacterial epidemic or pandemic explain both viewpoints and express your own idea okay and write at least 250 words minimum 250 words students sometimes students comment I see that on the community board that oh the essay is too long it's 300 words no a 300 word essay is not too long so if you're writing 300 words clearly you are on the right track okay I see some paraphrasing from students that's fantastic Beck John says what are the merits and drawbacks of wearing masks pandemic very good back son nice paraphrasing Khyber says what are the benefits and deficits of covering of the face with the mask in an outbreak okay very good Khyber covering the face nice Preeti says paraphrasing illustrates useful words word choice and writing your own thoughts yeah exactly Preeti that's good that's what we're doing so paraphrase charlie send paraphrases like this charlie says what are the pros and cons of wearing a mask during a contagious pandemic explained both positive and negative sides and give your own opinion very nice charlie I like how you really detailed the two sides you don't have to write contagious pandemic just pandemic pandemic it's known that it's contagious okay as far as I know I could be wrong Charlie you came on says what are the benefits and drawbacks of using masks during an extreme pandemic Andy came good you don't need to say this because we're not necessarily talking about the corona virus we're talking about this in general and you don't have to write extreme pandemic because a pandemic is extreme it means it's a global contagion so we don't need the word extreme all right and there are some other nice paraphrasing is very good this is mine what are the benefits and deficits of putting a face mask on while there is a viral or bacterial epidemic or pandemic explain both viewpoints and express your own idea epidemic pandemic slight differences epidemics more localized pandemic is even more global alright good so let's keep moving here students if I'm going a bit too fast let me know but I do want to show you the pace the speed that you should be thinking and using your English so the next step is identify the topic so what are we talking about here okay so what are we talking about here what's the topic what are what is it what is in question of discussion for the essay very good so I'll be shek says the topic not topic sentence I'll be shocked but just topic is masks yeah face masks okay good yeah so face masks okay very good and what's the controlling idea okay what about these masks pros and cons of medical masks during a pandemic very nice so humble human pros and cons of medical masks during an infectious outbreak yeah so pros and cons of wearing face masks during a pandemic alright sure good so let's go through the what why how is just nice and quick what is a face mask so in this context what is a face mask and it's good to do this because remember your reader is like an alien they're smart but they don't know what you know so you have to be descriptive you have to be really clear in your writing so Luca said afine says it's a medical device not a device Luca it's an apparel or clothing okay so it's a medical material medical equipment device is a bit awkward Luca okay that John says it's a medical outfit that protects people from getting a virus Bek John I think you're confusing the what and putting it together with the Y alright so I see some other answers coming up that are good humble human says it's a medical mask which helps to prevent loss of transmitting viruses in the air a and students practice separating the what from the why okay so helping to transmit disease or preventing the transmission of disease that's the why question right here we're talking about the what question okay so she wrote gteen says it's a medical hygienic material which is meant to cover the mouth and nose right so yeah it's a special type of material or fiber that is a small circle or rectangle fitted to cover the face okay all right sure so again when you're focusing on the what keep it to the what don't think about the why and the how okay that's later so it's a special type of material or fiber that is a small circle or rectangle fitted to cover the face all right using that kind of grammar vocabulary in your writing will get you some points for sure lexical resource is very important okay for students who watch these lessons regularly where do you think we can use this information in the essay so what part of the essay will make use of this kind of information about description the what okay so this is for those of you who aren't sure why is Adrian doing this what's the purpose of going through this critical thinking yeah so Bek John says it's gonna be useful in the background in the introduction exactly yeah perfect okay very good nice I knew a lot of you're paying attention and I'm not just talking to a lens that makes me feel good alright so it's in the introduction it's used in the background when we're defining the topic and the controlling idea so why wear a face mask that's the next one so why wear a mask on the face okay so why do that why wear a mask on the face and sometimes I think students are really you know they're a little bit too ambitious and they think oh I don't need to think about this because I know the answers to all of these it's in my head but it's actually different when you actively think about these and you're going to write much better sentences okay so and I know that a lot of you are realizing this so Hamas says to protect our breath from spreading contaminating particles bacteria microorganisms virus and dust particles okay very nice description himand Tito says for hygienic purposes and to cover the face from different bacteria and viruses okay let's see what else people come up with and compare your answers to other students and mine see how it fares is it the same are you missing information can you write it a little bit better can you write it more clearly these are the questions that you should always be asking yourself when you're doing this planning and practicing at home Elena says it helps us to prevent virus contamination not only help the person from germs but also helps the community from germs okay students let me give you a little hint here let's see if somebody picks up on this if I go huh what am i doing and if I go oh what am i doing so if I go what am i doing and if I go who what am i doing what's the verb for these two actions that I just showed you I think that's what's missing from a lot of the Y's aha I'll be check very quickly says you're inhaling and exhaling who agrees Renu is there with it very nice inhale exhale so can somebody give me a little bit better why now why wear a mask on the face so give me a nice simple concise logical answer using the words inhale and exhale to explain why do this ok Heart Ball says yeah of course of course I got it I got what you're saying good so put it into a sentence okay keep it simple you can get fancier as you move along so mm-hmm okay cool deep says the protection of inhalation and exhalation of pathogens right if we want to put all of those virus bacteria everything into one word we can say pathogens fur dog says to protect not only myself but others during exhalation and inhalation good yeah absolutely so to restrict or block the inhalation and exhalation of pathogens okay and that's why you want to practice the what why how at home all the time so that you can improve and get to this level of explanation and clarity okay because that's what gets you the ban nine okay so to restrict or block the inhalation and exhalation of pathogens good how how does a mask do this okay so how does a mask help us to block this okay a Kyber you should definitely talk about the mask in the hook but you're jumping ahead so we'll get there later okay okay Petey says it prevents the person from touching their face okay Tendulkar says tiny fiber layers block the entry of pathogens very good so tiny fiber layers gate gate is also a verb students it's not just the noun it's also a verb gating okay so tiny fiber layers gate the entry and exit of pathogens and it also prevents people from touching their face okay good all right so now we have a very good what why how about the topic and again in the real IELTS exam we're doing this quickly okay when you practice this at home all of these ideas and words are coming to your head in a very short time in just one or two minutes okay now of course you need to do the same for what why how for the pros and the cons the controlling idea so let's start with the advantages what are the advantages of wearing a mask now this is going to be very quick because we have this from the topic it prevents and give me an answer for this those students I'd like to see your answer it shouldn't be the exact same as the topic this is a little bit different than the topic so what are the advantages of wearing a mask I'll give the obvious one so it prevents the likelihood of infection from pathogens okay or let's use a different word this time micro organisms microorganisms [Music] yeah okay what else okay Manpreet says it provides protection from pollution yeah sure okay Vinita says it prevents us from inhaling contaminated air alright anybody coming up with any other ideas think outside the box students so when you get the first quick easy answer think hmm is there any other possible advantage okay so the other one of course is it slows yeah so it prevents the likelihood of infection from microorganisms saves health and lives and slows the spread of contagion okay so that's another reason people still get sick but not as quickly right so that's how it reminds people to not touch their face their face okay yeah I'm sure all right so let's take the other side of this now which is what are the disadvantages of wearing a mask that's an interesting question so how about that one okay we came up quickly with some answers for what are the advantages but what are the disadvantages in fact some of you may or may not know that the World Health Organization w-h-o actually had advisory for people to not wear masks unless they are sick or working with sick people why okay Siobhan says it can create [Music] let's see what Shivan said shabam said it can create a breathing problem it can restrict proper breathing yeah it can be hard to breathe through a mask absolutely it can result in allergies yeah maybe restrict breathing somebody's using some nice vocabulary they're cold deep sinks that's suffocating yeah when you have difficulty breathing you're suffocating okay Pavan says maybe allergies I don't know maybe leads to allergies sure what else can anybody else tell me what it what might happen okay let's see what are okay roshni says it can actually lead to more infection if people don't know how to handle the mask absolutely yeah that's true and I see that all the time so one really interesting phenomenon that's happening in the world today is of course in Europe and much of us in Canada people aren't used to wearing masks not like in Asian cultures like Korea or China so they don't know how to use masks properly and when masks are misused it actually increases the chance of infection I see a lot of people in Europe here with their masks and all day they're doing this they're pulling them down putting them on their chin they're smoking then putting them back up III I just kind of wish almost some of these people weren't really wearing a masks I don't think that's a good idea so actually increasing the amount of time that people are touching their face so when misused can lead to a greater chance of infection all right yeah that's kind of interesting as well okay all right so we've got some good answers there now overall you still need your opinion so be very careful about the question students the next step that you need to do is write your thesis but before you write your thesis okay so before you write the thesis check the original question and make sure to have a very accurate thesis okay so that's what we're going to do now and here the original question says discuss both and give your own opinion okay so we need to come up with our own opinion what do you think students is it overall is it better during a pandemic to wear a mask or is it better to not wear a mask what do you think let's see I'm really curious how the viewers are opinionated on this okay so and give just they wear a mask or not wear a mask please don't say both okay because you can't have a mask on your face and not have a mask on your face at the same time okay it's not possible all right so muddy Co says it's better I'll be Scheck says it's an advantage it's better it's better to wear it okay couple people say don't wear it but it looks like most people say yeah wear it okay education right is important so being educated on how to use masks properly all right so opinion is it's better so in the end it's better right in the end it is better okay well go with that so now if your opinion is that it's better to wear a mask then the advantage should be body paragraph one or two what do you think so advantage his body 1 or 2 where should you write it should you write it first or should you write it second so should the disadvantages come before the advantages or the advantages come before the disadvantages hmm ok it looks like there's a lot more confusion about this than about wearing a mask or not wearing a mask oh yeah ok alright for all of those who are saying who you're right ok so this should be body - ok why you should always discuss the idea that you disagree with first and then the idea you support ok the logic is that you want to leave the audience in this case your readers with the idea that you support ok that makes for a better persuasive or argumentative essay ok so it should be in body paragraph 2 so disadvantages first then advantages so that means that in the thesis you need to think about that okay so disadvantages then advantages ok your thesis statement of course is the last sentence of your introduction it's your position in the paper it shows the structure of your ideas so let's do this let's write the thesis statement ok so students let's make the thesis statement ok let's write the thesis statement ok so give me a nice thesis statement I'm going to you the same all right all right there we go let's see what you come up with for your thesis statement all right and for those of you who are not clear on the thesis statement like what it will make sense in a moment okay so Manuka says overall wearing masks with enough knowledge is crucial these days because of pandemic diseases like corona virus so from that Manuka I understand what you think but I don't understand what the essay is about clearly okay Vanita rishi says according to me wearing a mask is the protective measure to hold in order to Vinita same idea so you're only answering half of the question okay the thesis has to answer both parts of the question it doesn't have to be one sentence you can even write it as two sentences but it has to answer the question okay fur dog says during a pandemic many people put on face masks and it has benefits and deficits in my opinion it has advantages as it saves health and lives and Mena's minimizes the spread of virus or viruses okay for Dobbs good a little bit unclear on the disadvantages and I think you're mixing in a bit of the background definition into your thesis statement so be careful with that okay all right roshni says the disadvantages of wearing a face masks are increasing suffocation and diseases however I completely believe that it has more advantages while during a pandemic it can prevent and slow illness roshni very nice you're very close to what I wrote just watch the grammar on the ending okay but roshni nice you're really improving that's great BEC John says the main advantage of wearing masks are protection from virus and minimizing its spread while the disadvantages are suffocating and misusing bet jump the one big mistake in your thesis is you're writing about the advantages first and the disadvantages second that only works back John you are against wearing masks because remember what we said that body paragraph 2 is the advantages is that clear Clegg Jean so students your thesis has to reflect the structure of your essay okay our Jean we're going to write the hook next when we start the introductory paragraph but it's important to have your thesis statement before you begin your essay okay so you should have your clear thesis statement in mind or on paper okay you need your thesis statement before you begin before you begin your essay now in the paper based exam that means that you want to write it a little bit lower leave a couple lines for the hook and the introduction in the computer-based IELTS exam it's easy because you can actually just copy paste it or move it down okay all right so yeah back John good you caught the mistake though right you saw that okay all right so here is my thesis statement while disadvantages of wearing a mask during a pandemic may be suffocation and contagion I believe that the advantages preventing and slowing illness are greater okay so notice it's not that long and for the reader this thesis statement tells the reader a few very important points okay number one it shows the reader that I'm talking about disadvantages first okay also it tells the reader that I'm going to explain suffocation and contagion in this first paragraph secondly it shows the reader that my position is more with the advantages the advantages are my second body paragraph and my second body paragraph we'll explain and show examples for slowing illness and preventing illness okay so to a skilled reader to a good reader and you can do this of course with your IELTS reading passages you'll see the thesis statements as well all of this information becomes clear from a good thesis statement okay body one details body two details and my position is that clear so is it clear why we're putting together this very accurate precise thesis and it's called a direct thesis which shows the reader what the essay is about okay is that clear students that jump for dove says yes it is alright thank you so that's what a good thesis statement does okay that's what you need to do for band 9 on both the academic and the general okay so Preeti says got it it's got to be short with lots of accurate detail and structure yes very good okay and glad that you're picking that up okay now we want to begin our introduction so all of this planning and all of this putting together the thesis when you practice at students it happens in five six minutes okay so you're thinking wow Adrienne's crazy you can't do this in 40 minutes in an IELTS exam yes you can when you practice these strategies you can do this very quickly if you want the truth I can come up with a thesis like this from a question like this in two minutes okay but obviously I teach this this is what I do but for you with good practice you should be able to do it in five six minutes no problem alright so introduction starts with the hook absolutely blew me absolutely himand okay so introduction okay it has a hook plus background plus thesis ok that's an introduction I didn't make that up that's standard okay if you go to college or university or if you're in high school in Canada or in America or wherever in many many countries good English teacher will tell you that an introduction for most essays especially persuasive essays will have a hook background in thesis if your IELTS teacher tells you oh the IELTS doesn't you don't need a hook you don't need it you don't need anything you don't need body paragraphs either you can just write one big paragraph but with a hook you'll get a better band score okay so keep that in mind okay and I see lots of hooks coming up already a lot of people jumping the gun here but that's great sure so Beck John says wearing medical masks is one of the many ways to combat a virus I love it Beck John what a great hook okay so Beck John says wearing medical masks is one of many ways to combat virus okay so wearing medical masks is one of many ways to combat pathogens combat harm from pathogen combat pathogens is enough all right yeah that's a great one Beck John so I kind of took what you said and made it a little bit more concise so wearing medical masks is one of many ways don't make silly little spelling mistakes it's a good idea students to review and read your hook in the official exam a couple times so if you miss an n like I did then you can catch it okay in the paper-based exam if you do this and you write it like that then just do a little V like that and do a n like that of course in the computer-based exam you can space and add the end okay so do that great nice one thank you for that back John coal deep says the matter of Health has become a serious issue these days coal deep to general ok your hook should include the topic ok so don't start super general okay it's still this is still general within this essay but it's not as general as saying health and hygiene is an important factor as Nick Haines okay so you need to include the topic noun in your hook ok please make sure to do that you'll get a better band score your essay will be more focused Rajveer sinks as a face mask helps humanity fight with a contagious virus Goodridge fear tito says people nowadays debate putting on masks because it has pros and cons tito good tito nowadays one word one word okay I think I've said that before Tito so one word okay and Tito no comma after masks because your independent clause is followed by your dependent clause okay alright so wearing medical masks is one of many ways to combat pathogens we're off to a good start now we want to do the background okay and the background has definitions and importance okay so what are we talking about and why are we talking about it these are the questions that you should answer in your background so what are we talking about and why are we talking about it and this is where you can use the information from your planning stage so this is why it's really good to do the planning because when you do good planning all you need to do is just rewrite or retype and but I Bing but a boom you're off to the races okay so muck suit for the background says millions of individuals buy masks on a daily basis to prevent themselves from viruses that's the importance of the question mucks ood so very good and then the definition right so much suit says millions of people buy masks on a daily basis to sorry the chat keeps moving sometimes against my will to protect themselves and society from illness and you can even go into more explanation MUC suit about the importance and you can say therefore therefore it is important to know whether they are effective or not okay so you can literally tell your reader therefore it is important to know whether they are effective or not do they work do they not work right we want to know that and you can tell your reader that directly so put yourself in the position of the reader and think hey just give it to me straight why are we talking about this why is it important okay all right and then of course we can put in the definition and the definition remember students comes from the what on the topic so what is a face mask it is a special type of material or fiber that is a small circle or rectangle fitted to cover the face and filter pathogens filter microorganisms right so all I'm going to do just to show you how beautifully this works okay we can just copy that take it stick it in here and do a little bit of adjusting and it'll become the second sentence of our background okay so these masks are a special type of material or fiber that is a small circle or rectangle fitted to cover the face and filter micro-organisms and dust okay and now comes my thesis okay so that's how a band 9 introduction is put together piece by piece using logic okay so all I'm doing now is I'm copying this in and in the computer-based exam you can literally walk through the steps in this way nice and quickly so here is your band 9 introduction students and magically it even fits into one screenshot here so let's review it together introduction has the hook the background and the thesis now this is what is considered a band 9 by IELTS examiner's they consider this an expert user of English and by college professors high school University English teachers they would say the same so wearing medical masks is one of many ways to combat pathogens millions of people buy masks on a daily basis to protect themselves in society from illness therefore it is important to know whether they are effective or not these masks are a special type of material or fiber that is a small circle or rectangle fitted to cover the face and filter microorganisms and dust while the disadvantages of wearing a masks during a pandemic may be suffocation and contagion I believe that the advantages preventing and slowing illness are greater there you go that is your band 9 introduction all right hopefully that makes sense does that make sense student any questions about this introduction ok she Jomon Polly Klaas says it's the science of sentences it is and it's not just the science of sentences it's the science of clear communication effective communication through literature ok and it is a science so everything that I'm showing you here I'd love to say that I made it up but I didn't this is this is being developed through hundreds and hundreds years by communication and literary masters okay all right burr ender says why so long that's a very good question so Brenner just saw says why is this so long Birendra it's not that long I'll tell you exactly how many words it is okay so give me a second here remember it's a 250 word essay minimum minimum okay so this if I take out the instructions is about 85 words okay so this is roughly 85 words okay that means I'm taking out these this part here because obviously that's not needed I'm taking out this part here so it's about 85 words now 85 words if I - 85 from 250 okay - 85 it means that for my body paragraphs my conclusion I still have 165 words minimum remaining okay now again remember this is AB + 9 so ab + 9 sa will be much closer to 300 - 350 words okay for ban 9 alright so for our 300 to 350 word essay 85 words for a solid introduction it's not that long okay a good introduction in a short essay can easily be as long as a body paragraph sometimes actually often even longer does that make sense okay all right further up says can we write body paragraph 1 into 4 does I'd love to do that but we'd be here for far too long and I am going to write body one body 2 and the conclusion and I will complete this essay but I'd like you to do the same so I want to challenge you to look at some examples on the channel some other videos that explain body 1 body 2 and do it for homework so obviously body one is about the disadvantage is suffocation contagion and body 2 is about the advantages preventing slowing illness this shouldn't be too difficult this topic I know it's challenging but it shouldn't be too bad ok so I challenge you to do that for homework and over the next couple days like I've done so far I will include this on the channel bulletin board ok himand is asking a very good question - I see hum on saying please answer one more question c'mon says sir can we use a question statement in the introduction yeah and I know a students like doing that so they like doing these kinds of things like starting an essay with our masks a good way to combat a pandemic okay so Himanta is asking can we start the essay with the question the answer is no okay it's a special kind of technique it's not a technique that you should use on the IELTS exam the reason being is that essays are meant to answer questions okay so the goal of an essay the goal of a writing is to answer a question for your audience your reader it's not to ask your reader a question if you ask your reader a question your reader will start thinking about his own answers or her own answers and they might be opposite to what you're writing so in that case you fail in your argument even before you start there's a special situation Hammad where we use questions in essay writing and that situation is when the answers are not necessarily clear and we want the public to come up with different ideas but I'm not going to get into that that's a different topic you don't have to think about that for the IELTS for the outs exam students please do not write questions into your essays they do not look good they do not read well okay all right come on does that answer your question so essays your goal is to answer questions not to ask them from your reader okay very good himand remember tomorrow we will have a Q&A session for members so tomorrow's members chat class will be a question and answer session and that's exactly the type of questions that you should bring to that class tomorrow hem ons ok color is an interesting statement that introduces your topic and catches your readers attention ok that's what a hook is alright everyone to learn lots more about writing task 1 writing task 2 including editing and writing help from our native Canadian University experts like myself please visit our websites a ehelp calm for academic GL's help.com for general you can submit your essays there for editing and feedback it's 6 cents US per word but it's well worth it so check that out alright hopefully I will see all of you tomorrow again join us a help calm for academic IELTS gol comm for general I hope you took lots of good information from this class keep up the good studies stay safe stay ambitious work hard be productive and I will see you tomorrow much love to everyone from Central Europe bye for now

Channel: AcademicEnglishHelp

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Keywords: IELTS, Task 2, writing, essay, paragraphs, sentences, vocabulary, introduction paragraph, band 9, body paragraphs, conclusion, IELTS description, English examination, writing IELTS, writing for task two, second part of writing, writing strategies, IELTS task 2, Lesson, Teacher, Learn, Student, Lessons, Learning, Free, Intro, Tutorial, IELTS task 2 explain, IELTS task 2 learning, IELTS task 2 explanations, plan, planning, understand, skills, strategies

Id: pUr4hHpO19I

Length: 52min 42sec (3162 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 10 2020