Be Careful When Studying IELTS

[ted_ielts]

Hey folks. This is a bit of a rant, so I apologise in advance. But it is honestly important and affects everyone in this group, so please do take a few minutes to read.

I'm an IELTS tutor and I own a popular website, which has been providing IELTS materials for 4 years. I started it because I was really depressed when I looked at the sort of materials available online for IELTS students. Back then, I was looking for things to use in my lessons and there wasn't much except for a few of the big websites.

Nowadays, you can broadly categorise IELTS websites/YouTube channels into two groups:

• totally unethical ones, making false promises and spreading bad information
• ones written in terrible English

Of course, there is a lot of overlap. Many are written in bad English and also provide terrible information.

The sad thing is that these websites become really popular and they spread this terrible information to hundreds of thousands of IELTS students, who then waste their money booking a test when they are not ready. They learn idiotic strategies and bad language from these lazy or misguided or dishonest teachers.

It's a sad state of affairs and it seems to be getting worse. Every day, there are more and more IELTS websites and YouTube channels and Facebook pages. These are usually run by people who just want to make money and have no real understanding of English or IELTS. Another major problem emerges:

They steal content!

This really annoys me. Almost every day, I find my own articles and materials stolen and used on other websites. These are things that I have spent countless hours creating, but these shameless people just steal them without caring. Yesterday, I found that someone had stolen an entire book that I wrote! Not only did they share it illegally (which is common) but they also took my name off and replaced it with their own! I also saw that someone had copied a whole article by another popular IELTS tutor and turned it into a YouTube video.

It is a difficult thing to deal with. No one likes it when others steal their property, be it physical or intellectual. I am tired of dealing with this because there are so many of these people and they face no consequences for their actions.

The result is this:

• Good IELTS tutors work hard to make helpful materials, but these are stolen and the thieves make profits
• IELTS students are tricked into believing nonsense by unethical people who will take their money

The only people who seem to be winning right now are the shameless thieves. Their theft and unscrupulous methods mean that they jump to the first page of Google and find new visitors. Their websites grow popular, even though the material they produce is either stolen or completely useless.
I say all this in the hope that some people learn from it. I know it's difficult to tell as an English learner whether something is written in perfect English or not. Still, I hope that you can look and use common sense to find whether the website is making false promises or disseminating illegal material. These are good clues and can help you avoid the sham sites that will mislead you.

Some advice:

If anyone tells you that they can get you a band 7+ "100% guaranteed" then they are lying.
If anyone tells you that you can learn "these 5 words" and get a band 7+ then they are lying
If anyone tells you that they can predict future IELTS questions then they are lying