IELTSNetwork.com

I'm a 32 year old Canadian. For the past 10 years, I've been teaching and developing materials for the IELTS. This line of work has allowed me to travel to many different countries, an opportunity I am very grateful for. My journey started in the Emirate of Dubai, where I prepped students for the written portion of their IELTS examination. It was at this time that I made my first YouTube videos and created my first website (EnglishRyan.com). Following this, my career in IELTS took me to Shanghai, China. I taught IELTS in Shanghai for 5 wonderful years and started to take my online work more seriously through the creation of my blog (ieltsielts.com). In mid 2012, I got married and moved back to Canada for a period of three months before continuing on to Doha, Qatar (where my wife and I are today).

I really enjoy travelling and meeting people from other parts of the world. I think that cultural exchange is incredibly rewarding and has led me to learn a lot about myself.

I'm very much looking forward to getting to know you here!

Hii,
I am Anisha George,working as a nurse in KSA.I have attempted IELTS once in India and ended up with 8 and 8.5 in listening and reading respectively,then 6.5 in writing and speaking.So,I would like to raise up my scores upto 7 for each.I hope this website would help me to do that. My next exam date is september 21 in Saudi Arabia.

Hi Anisha,

Nice to meet you. What part of Saudi are you living in? My wife and I are in neighbouring Qatar. We enjoy living here, but the climate can be oppressive at times.

Hi Bimal,

Thank you for the background on your situation. I'm also enthusiastic about learning languages. I spent several years in Shanghai and very much enjoyed my Mandarin studies there. It's rewarding when you can start to communicate with people in an entirely different tongue!

Yes, the Internet has really opened up some incredible opportunities for language learning. Being able to interact with people living in other corners of the world is very rapidly changing the way we as humans educate ourselves. I'm really hoping that this forum becomes a place where English language and IELTS understanding can be exchanged.

My wife and I are hoping to visit Sri Lanka someday. Let us know where a cool place to go would be!

Dear Ryan
It has been really wonderful knowing you through this forum.I have already known you in the sense that I visit your Youtube presentations quite often.I appreciate your dedication and find the blogs immensely useful . I am a middle-aged woman from India and have recently started an institute to train IELTS aspirants at Chennai in India.Though I had attended the Train the Trainer workshop for IELTS trainers conducted at British Council, it was only after watching your writing blog did I gain some confidence in guiding my students.So far I have had only a few students who have achieved an average of 6.5 as overall band and I believe that I need to improve a lot in order to do justice to those who come to me for guidance.Though you are much younger to me ,I look upon you as my mentor to help me realize my dream of carving a niche for myself as an IELTS Trainer.God be with you, Ryan ! You are a wonderful person. Before I wind up, I would like you to clarify a doubt that I have . Which of these is correct? I am a 50 year old Indian (or) I am a 50 years old Indian. ? Some say, when followed by a noun ,year carries no s to it and that it does when the sentence is like' The boy is 10 years old '.
Thank you for all the great things you do!
Regards ,
Manimala

Hello : )

thank you, Ryan, for setting up this website and organizing contests.

I am from the eastern part of Kazakhstan, and I am a student in the high school. I hope this website will help me and other students learn English.. and wish you and the students good luck! : )

Samat.

Manimala wrote:Dear Ryan
It has been really wonderful knowing you through this forum.I have already known you in the sense that I visit your Youtube presentations quite often.I appreciate your dedication and find the blogs immensely useful . I am a middle-aged woman from India and have recently started an institute to train IELTS aspirants at Chennai in India.Though I had attended the Train the Trainer workshop for IELTS trainers conducted at British Council, it was only after watching your writing blog did I gain some confidence in guiding my students.So far I have had only a few students who have achieved an average of 6.5 as overall band and I believe that I need to improve a lot in order to do justice to those who come to me for guidance.Though you are much younger to me ,I look upon you as my mentor to help me realize my dream of carving a niche for myself as an IELTS Trainer.God be with you, Ryan ! You are a wonderful person. Before I wind up, I would like you to clarify a doubt that I have . Which of these is correct? I am a 50 year old Indian (or) I am a 50 years old Indian. ? Some say, when followed by a noun ,year carries no s to it and that it does when the sentence is like' The boy is 10 years old '.
Thank you for all the great things you do!
Regards ,
Manimala

Hi Manimala,
It is very nice to meet another IELTS instructor. Thank you for sharing a bit about yourself and your endeavours in India. A friend of mine just returned from a trip to India and Nepal, actually. He's been telling me about the places he visited: Delhi, New Delhi (and the town of Meerut), Calcutta and Jaipur (and a few other places in Rajasthan, but the names escape me now). Needless to say, he's really whetted my appetite to go. There are way too many places in the world. I wish I could live several lifetimes to see them all.

Your question is probably in reference to my opening, which unfortunately carried a typo. It's 'I am a 50 year old Indian woman'.

All the best with your classes is Chennai! If you have a company website, please feel free to put a link in the signature area of your posts.

Samat wrote:Hello : )

thank you, Ryan, for setting up this website and organizing contests.

I am from the eastern part of Kazakhstan, and I am a student in the high school. I hope this website will help me and other students learn English.. and wish you and the students good luck! : )

Samat.

Hi Samat,

Pleasure to meet you. I was very impressed but that assessment you provided of dream2oz's writing. Hope you'll share a bit more of your exam knowledge in the future.

Wow, Kazakhstan. While working at a Russian school in Dubai, I had several students in my class from Kazakhstan. They were extremely nice and became very good friends of mine. I remember the Kazakh students once running a contest in class where they asked everyone to guess Kazakhstan's position on a list of countries ordered by geographical size. I remember all non-Kazakhs (including me) being surprised by just how large Kazakhstan actually is!

I'm glad you like the new site and contests.

Hi,

It is very nice to meet you. I am originally from Israel and have been living abroad for the past 5 years. 2 in Australia and 3 in England. I am taking the IELTS because I would like to go to University in North of England to study Occupational Therapy and part of the requirements are IELTS exam.

I would like to say thank you very much for helping everyone around the world to pass the exam. I haven't done any academic English for the past 15 years, and now had to learn it again in order to be accepted to University. All your lessons on YouTube and the blog were massively helpful and I am very grateful.

Thank you

Annabelle

HI Ryan,

I am Bunni and I am from India. To summarize about myself, I am an IT professional working for a reputed MNC in India. I have done my master's in Computer Applications .

Basically, I am a kind of a person, who always requires some kind of driving force to initiate and complete any activity. For instance, learning english.

I did my master's in english medium, but still some where I feel I should reach the next level of speaking and writing in english. And I have been thinking about doing this from past 5 or more than that, couldn't.Recently, I took some important decisions in my life and one of them was to migrate to Australia . As it is known to everyone, to step into Australia, one has to cross the bridge of english successfully. So, the driving force here for my learning english is landing safely there.

I heard so much about you and also experienced the essence of the way you teach IELTS or correct me it is English is AWE!. I'll try to keep myself engaged with IELTS community.That is the only way which I see to take a raise in the degree of my English language.

Regards
Bunni

I am not totally sure if I can help other students, since I am, myself, a student. But I will be posting some assessments from time to time, and hope you'll correct them, if they are wrong.

I am glad you have positive impressions about Kazakhstan =)
Yes, many people get the same reaction when they learn how large it is =)

I have few Canadian teachers in my school =) all of them are really kind. and that makes them distinctive among other international teachers. and they've become really close to me. unfortunately, they are leaving the school. but I had wonderful experience working with them =)

Samat.

Hi sir Ryan,

I was sorting for videos on YouTube that will might help me to prepare myself for the IELTS review and soon after for the IELTS academic exam. I was planning to take the exam for some time now, however I have no confidence and relatively afraid to fail on the exam. I'm hoping to at least garner a score not below 7 for all types of the exam. I was fortunate that I came across with your video tackling regarding technology, and then been hopeful that I might get the score that I am aspiring for with your help... Thank you very much.

Hi Ryan,

I am Natasha, I originate from the UK but I am currently living in Australia and will be taking my IELTS exam in the next few weeks in Perth in order to apply for permanent residency (I need level 8's in all sections!!).

I have found your blog and youtube video's extremely helpful, thank you so much!

Even though, I am a native English speaker I have found preparing for the IELTS difficult. The main issues I face is with the TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN sections of the reading test. I think I tend to use my judgment on some of the sentences and that is where I go wrong.

Speaking is my other weakness, I am a fluent English speaker, however, I get extremely nervous under exam conditions and I can't seem to get my word's out! I find it very difficult to think on the spot and I am very worried about getting a topic which I don't have much knowledge about.

Your video's have really helped me with preparing for the writing component of the test. I have not written essays for many years and I was struggling with the structure which I feel a bit more confident in now.

I have posted an essay in your contest, I would be so grateful if you could provide some feedback just so I can ascertain what level I am currently at.

Your help is greatly appreciated and as a native speaker if I am finding it so difficult to prepare for the exams, It must be a lot worse for people who speak English as their second language, therefore your resources are so useful to everyone.

Thanks again!

Annabelle G wrote:Hi,

It is very nice to meet you. I am originally from Israel and have been living abroad for the past 5 years. 2 in Australia and 3 in England. I am taking the IELTS because I would like to go to University in North of England to study Occupational Therapy and part of the requirements are IELTS exam.

I would like to say thank you very much for helping everyone around the world to pass the exam. I haven't done any academic English for the past 15 years, and now had to learn it again in order to be accepted to University. All your lessons on YouTube and the blog were massively helpful and I am very grateful.

Thank you

Annabelle

Hi Annabelle,

Thanks for the kind words about my work.

I imagine that all of your time spent in English speaking countries has helped your spoken language skills immensely. I hope you are able to attain the mark you need.

bunni015 wrote:HI Ryan,

I am Bunni and I am from India. To summarize about myself, I am an IT professional working for a reputed MNC in India. I have done my master's in Computer Applications .

Basically, I am a kind of a person, who always requires some kind of driving force to initiate and complete any activity. For instance, learning english.

I did my master's in english medium, but still some where I feel I should reach the next level of speaking and writing in english. And I have been thinking about doing this from past 5 or more than that, couldn't.Recently, I took some important decisions in my life and one of them was to migrate to Australia . As it is known to everyone, to step into Australia, one has to cross the bridge of english successfully. So, the driving force here for my learning english is landing safely there.

I heard so much about you and also experienced the essence of the way you teach IELTS or correct me it is English is AWE!. I'll try to keep myself engaged with IELTS community.That is the only way which I see to take a raise in the degree of my English language.

Regards
Bunni

Hi Bunni,

Your Australian plans sound exciting! Yes, the road can be a challenging one, but you will make it in time.

Thank you for your message and for the info about your case.

Samat wrote:I am not totally sure if I can help other students, since I am, myself, a student. But I will be posting some assessments from time to time, and hope you'll correct them, if they are wrong.

I am glad you have positive impressions about Kazakhstan =)
Yes, many people get the same reaction when they learn how large it is =)

I have few Canadian teachers in my school =) all of them are really kind. and that makes them distinctive among other international teachers. and they've become really close to me. unfortunately, they are leaving the school. but I had wonderful experience working with them =)

Samat.

That's great news, Samat. I'll thank you in advance for any guidance/IELTS experience you can share here.

I am very happy to hear you have a positive impression of Canadians. As I was telling you, I met many intelligent and motivated Kazakhs in Dubai. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

Ejburn wrote:Hi sir Ryan,

I was sorting for videos on YouTube that will might help me to prepare myself for the IELTS review and soon after for the IELTS academic exam. I was planning to take the exam for some time now, however I have no confidence and relatively afraid to fail on the exam. I'm hoping to at least garner a score not below 7 for all types of the exam. I was fortunate that I came across with your video tackling regarding technology, and then been hopeful that I might get the score that I am aspiring for with your help... Thank you very much.

Hi Ejburn,

I'm glad the videos are helpful. Yes, I've found in my career that building student confidence is a critical first step to improving all areas of their IELTS. For writing, having strong control of Task 1 and 2 structure is an important component to this confidence.

Do not be nervous about your exam. Just do lots and lots (...and lots...) of practicing first. The most successful students I talk to are ones that know their band before they even go into the exam. Their practice tests are consistently band 7 (for example).

Good luck with your studies.

pinkroses wrote:Hi Ryan,

I am Natasha, I originate from the UK but I am currently living in Australia and will be taking my IELTS exam in the next few weeks in Perth in order to apply for permanent residency (I need level 8's in all sections!!).

I have found your blog and youtube video's extremely helpful, thank you so much!

Even though, I am a native English speaker I have found preparing for the IELTS difficult. The main issues I face is with the TRUE/FALSE/NOT GIVEN sections of the reading test. I think I tend to use my judgment on some of the sentences and that is where I go wrong.

Speaking is my other weakness, I am a fluent English speaker, however, I get extremely nervous under exam conditions and I can't seem to get my word's out! I find it very difficult to think on the spot and I am very worried about getting a topic which I don't have much knowledge about.

Your video's have really helped me with preparing for the writing component of the test. I have not written essays for many years and I was struggling with the structure which I feel a bit more confident in now.

I have posted an essay in your contest, I would be so grateful if you could provide some feedback just so I can ascertain what level I am currently at.

Your help is greatly appreciated and as a native speaker if I am finding it so difficult to prepare for the exams, It must be a lot worse for people who speak English as their second language, therefore your resources are so useful to everyone.

Thanks again!

Hi Natasha,

Yes, we native speakers are not immune to the challenges of the IELTS either! At the end of the day, the IELTS is still a test, and because of this requires specific test taking skills to be honed.

There is an interview I did on http://www.IELTSCast.com with a native Brit. Maybe some of the advice she shares would be helpful to you? Just remember that it is all about structure. Your examiner wants to see logical progression in your response, and the ability to communicate a clear message that fulfills a question. Practicing to respond with structure allows you to do both of these things much more easily.

Hi Ryan,

This forum is a great idea! I'm sure more IELTS test takers will come and gather here to help each other with the preparation. Thank you for the work.

My name is Joe. I'm in Hefei, a city of East China. I'm a software developer. Right now I'm preparing for another IELTS test. I'm planning to move to Australia, so I need to score 7 in all 4 components of the test. Unfortunately I didn't do well enough in my last test (L9 R8.5 W6 S7). Writing has long been my biggest weakness. I am hoping that I can improve it with more practice.

I'm a computer geek, so I spend a lot of time in front of my laptop. After work I like to watch American TV shows. I like sitcom and sci-fi a lot. And I have a 3-year-old son named Jerry whom I spend a lot of time playing with:) I also like reading on my kindle. And like many other Chinese folks, I play badminton and table tennis.

Nice to meet you:)

Regards,
Joe

blurr wrote:Hi Ryan,

This forum is a great idea! I'm sure more IELTS test takers will come and gather here to help each other with the preparation. Thank you for the work.

My name is Joe. I'm in Hefei, a city of East China. I'm a software developer. Right now I'm preparing for another IELTS test. I'm planning to move to Australia, so I need to score 7 in all 4 components of the test. Unfortunately I didn't do well enough in my last test (L9 R8.5 W6 S7). Writing has long been my biggest weakness. I am hoping that I can improve it with more practice.

I'm a computer geek, so I spend a lot of time in front of my laptop. After work I like to watch American TV shows. I like sitcom and sci-fi a lot. And I have a 3-year-old son named Jerry whom I spend a lot of time playing with:) I also like reading on my kindle. And like many other Chinese folks, I play badminton and table tennis.

Nice to meet you:)

Regards,
Joe

Hi Joe,

It is very nice to meet you. I spent several wonderful years in China, and Anhui for me was a highlight. Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to see Huang Shan, but I did see your hometown (which was an incredibly welcoming place), Jing Xian and Xuan Cheng. Anhuinese people are very nice and Anhui food is among the world's finest (you can't go wrong with luo mi!)

I hope your aspirations to go to Australia are realized. Achieving band 7 involves strategy. If your grammar is solid and your essay structure is good, you should be able to hit 7 without too much trouble. Please post a few writing samples here and I'll try to offer advice when I get some free time.

Good luck!

Ryan wrote:
Hi Joe,

It is very nice to meet you. I spent several wonderful years in China, and Anhui for me was a highlight. Unfortunately, I haven't had the chance to see Huang Shan, but I did see your hometown (which was an incredibly welcoming place), Jing Xian and Xuan Cheng. Anhuinese people are very nice and Anhui food is among the world's finest (you can't go wrong with luo mi!)

I hope your aspirations to go to Australia are realized. Achieving band 7 involves strategy. If your grammar is solid and your essay structure is good, you should be able to hit 7 without too much trouble. Please post a few writing samples here and I'll try to offer advice when I get some free time.

Good luck!

Thanks Ryan,

I'm amazed that you have been to so many places in Anhui. And yeah, Hefei might be the most friendly city to foreigners in China, as I was told by a Scottish friend:) My hometown is actually Xiamen, a beautiful city which I miss a lot. But I came to Hefei for university in 1999 and ended up getting a job after graduation and then having a family here. I moved to Shanghai in 2009 and worked there for 5 months. But then my son was born so I decided to come back to Hefei where life is a bit easier and quieter.

And thanks for the advice on writing. I think there are two major problems with my writing. The first one is lack of practice. I read a lot of English documentation at work and visit English websites regularly, and I have no problem with listening because I watch a lot of Amercian TV shows. But I seldom write. So recently I am trying to write as much as I can. I have to say it's the most difficult part because academic writing is something I am not familiar with, and I'm often not quite sure whether my writing is correct and have to spend a lot of time confirming it with Longman Dictionary. But I am working on it. I will post my essays on the forum. If you have some time, any advice would be greatly appreciated. And another problem that I'm having is handwriting. I wasn't able to write fast enough during the last test because I was too used to typing in the computer. These days I've been trying to practice with a pencil. So far I think that's quite helpful.

I think I'm going to get a tl;dr here:P Thanks again:)

Regards,
Joe

Hi Ryan,
I am Auradha andy. Living in India. I m very glad to meet you here. I am also a teacher, having 20 years experience. I wish to migrate to Australia with my kids. So I am preparing for IELTS. Unfortunately I am working in a non English speaking environment. But I am trying to get a band score of 8. That is needed for my occupation. Your work on IELTS is very very impressive. yesterday i saw one of your video. I am getting motivated from that video, that I too can get my band score. Service to the man kind is the service to GoD. You are absolutely serving to god. I believe so.
thanks a lot Mr.Ryan.
Regards,
anu andy

Hi Ryan,
Thank you for this wonderful forum and your YouTube videos. My test is on 26th October. I wish I could discover this forum bit early! I need a band score of 7 overall and no less than 6.5 in any one section. I hope I will be able to pull it off.