Using Essay Templates To Ace Your IELTS Writing Task 2
It Really Works!
Before I share my essay template for improving your IELTS score, I want to show you PROOF that it has helped my students.
Please read this whole article carefully because this is one of the secret weapons that have helped my students ace their IELTS Writing essays. I know VERY FEW IELTS teachers throughout the world who actually teach this. So please pay attention if you are serious about improving your IELTS Writing.
Here's a message from my student Eileen (12th April 2016):
As she mentioned above, Eileen felt she did badly in the Reading exam and wanted to give up and walk out of the exam hall before the Writing exam. Fortunately, she decided to stay on and even though she was low in confidence, she followed the Writing Template I taught her during my classes and she was able to pass her Writing!
Here's what another student emailed me on March 7th 2016:
As you can read above, the Writing template I taught this student enabled him to finish his essay writing very quickly!
Having taught IELTS full-time for more than 7 years, I've come to realise something important that students need in order to do well for their IELTS Writing. They need TEMPLATES!
What Are Essay Templates?
What do I mean by "template"? Here is Macmillan Dictionary's definition of "template":
A "template" is a "pattern" or an "example" or a "model" for something else. Kevin B. King in The University of Michigan's The Writing Template Book (2007, p. 1) states the following:
Simply put, templates are frameworks of an essay that you can use to write a good essay. They contain parts of paragraphs and sentence.
They are “parts” and not the “whole” because an essay template is not the “whole” essay. Templates are not model essays for you to memorise and regurgitate during the exam. Please do NOT memorise whole essays because that just does not work.
Essay templates consist of IMPORTANT parts of the essay. It helps you with the organization of the essay and it helps you with forming good general sentences.
All you need to do is just fill the missing parts with your own ideas but the template would help you with a decent portion of your whole essay!
Why Students Need Essay Templates?
Essay templates can help students get a higher score on their essays. How?
- It provides a STRUCTURE or ORGANISATION of the essay. The template shows the student how many paragraphs the essay needs and how to form the different parts of the paragraphs.
- It provides some GENERAL SENTENCES that can be used in a student's essays. If the student uses them, he or she will save time (which is very important) and the sentences used will be ERROR-FREE, thus improving one's writing score.
That's why the author above says using writing templates is a "guaranteed tool for getting better scores". My students would be able to tell you how my Essay Templates have helped them improve their IELTS Writing score!
How Essay Templates Help
Let me show you an example of one template I give my students. I give them 7 in all because there are 7 different types of IELTS Writing Task 2 essays.
Please take time to read through it carefully and you will be amazed at how easy writing essays is when you have an accurate template.
As you can see from the above, the essay template gives the exact structure and organization for this type of essay. You can use a "4-paragraph" essay structure. Other essay types may require a "5-paragraph" essay structure.
It is clear through the template above how to structure this type of essay. For example, the student will be able to know what to write in the first or second sentence of the introduction paragraph. Furthermore, he or she knows what to write in the first or second sentence of the body paragraphs. Everything is laid out nicely and it is very organised.
Beyond helping the student with the organisation of the essay, the template also helps students with certain phrases. For instance, whatever IELTS question comes up, as long as it is of the "advantages and disadvantages" type of essay question, the student would be able to start the second sentence of the introduction with:
"While this offers a few advantages, there are also some disadvantages which are worth considering."
Also, the student could use the following template phrase when starting the second Paragraph which addresses the advantages:
"There are two main benefits to this development."
I will not go through everything here, but the point is that when you use good essay templates, you would be able understand the organisation needed for various question types and you would also be able to use certain phrases over and over again that would fit that particular essay type.
Not only does this save time, but it also ensures that the phrases that you use are grammatically correct. For a student targeting IELTS Band 7.0, very often they will make a number of grammar mistakes. However, if you use a good essay template, you can minimise the number of grammar mistakes made as the phrases in the essay template (if it's a good one!) are 100% grammatically correct.
Creating Your Own Essay Templates
I have spent 5 years creating my essay templates for my students, and I keep on editing them and refining them to make them better all the time.
These templates have helped a lot of my students improve their IELTS Writing score as it has helped them to:
- Organise their ideas into proper paragraphs
- Save time
- Write using good and accurate sentences
I will not be able to give you all my templates. They are for my students only! To find out more about my IELTS classes in Singapore, drop me a message or call me at 9768 1054.
Otherwise, if you are confident of creating your own templates and you have a lot of time to spare before you examination, here are my recommended steps to creating your own Essay Templates.
- You first need to be familiar with all the 7 different types of IELTS essays that come up.
- Think about the organization for each IELTS essay type. Should you use a 4-paragraph or 5-paragraph essay structure? Decide what sort of content will go into each paragraph.
- Create really specific essay templates. The more specific you create, the more helpful it can be. Think of phrases you can use over and over again in each part as long as the essay question is of that certain type.
If you are lost, you can use the model I've given you above. Trust me, you will learn tons by creating your own Essay Templates!
But if you are someone who is struggling with using good English, or if you do not have so much time to experiment with creating your templates, you may be interested to find out more about my classes.
My students get tons of my materials - 200 pages in all. All my students also receive video correction for their essays from me! Just call (or SMS/Whatsapp) me at the number below and I'll send you more information about my classes:
