 Hi everyone, Chris here from IELTS Advantage with another mini course. So we haven't done one of these mini courses in a few weeks and we're very very popular and one that a lot of you have been Asking about is IELTS Vocabulary. So of all the things that you could improve Vocabulary is probably the one that it's going to give you the biggest bang for your buck By that I mean it it has a force multiplying effect and it's really going to help you in many many many different areas So this week we're going to do a three-day mini course showing you how to improve your vocabulary So first of all is vocabulary important. Is it worth your time spending? Improving your vocabulary. So let's look at writing and speaking first. So it's 25% of your total marks It's obviously very very important But for writing and speaking helps you express meaning if you can't express meaning and get the meaning across to the examiner Either through speaking or writing then you're going to be in all sorts of trouble and then the wider of vocabulary You have the better you're able to express meaning and express yourself and the better you are able to Discuss the different topics either in the speaking test or the writing test For listening and reading the wider your vocabulary the more you're going to be able to understand I'm sure that you've done Maybe reading and listening practice tests and you just have no idea what's happening because there are lots of words You don't understand and it also helps you locate the correct answer It's good to for skimming and scanning and it helps you decide the correct answer as well imagine you have you know a multiple choice question with three different possible answers with three similar meanings having a knowing that the meaning of those words and having a wide vocabulary is going to help you with that and Then being aware of synonyms and all of those things is going to really really help you as well So is vocabulary important it is extremely important and I'm not saying that you should just focus on vocabulary You need to focus on everything, but if you're not focusing on vocabulary and you're doing some of the the bad things That I'm going to show you in this video Then you're going to get into a lot of trouble and if you are learning vocabulary the wrong way It's actually going to lower your score So many of you are doing things that are not helping you at all They're actually lowering your score and that's what we're going to look at in today's video So if you need any extra help today You can go to our vocabulary page on our website IELTSadvantage.com If there's anything you're unsure of or you need some extra help and we have a lot of free resources on there You can check those out and my email is there as well If you need any extra help with any other areas of the IELTS test So is vocabulary important let me demonstrate with this sentence So if I said to you meet me at 11 p.m Next to the old cinema you should know exactly what I mean. There's no problem with meaning there But imagine I take out Some of the more functional words So if I take out this I take out preposition I take out an article So I take out the functional the grammar words if you like and I said meet me 11 p.m Next old cinema Would you understand what I mean if I said those just those words to you meet me 11 p.m Next old cinema sure you would understand exactly what I mean because these words have meaning But let's try it the opposite way around. Let's remove the the meaning words Let's remove these words and just leave the more functional words in let's get rid of that Let's get rid of that. Let's get rid of that Let's just leave the prepositions and the articles in and if I said to you add to the Would you understand what I mean? You would have no idea because all the meaning is gone So when I take out the words when I take out the important words the vocabulary Then you're going to really really struggle So this is to demonstrate that not only is it important for Expressing meaning when you're writing and speaking, but if you did not understand those words Imagine you had no idea what that meant that meant That meant or that meant you would have no idea how to how to understand it if you were doing the reading and the listening test So it's extremely important that you are improving your vocabulary Every single day and it's extremely important that you're not doing the wrong thing So lesson one today, we're going to look at myths and BS I'm sure you know what BS is most of the advice out there related to vocabulary is BS And we're going to look at how that will actually lower your score And we're going to look at the the two most popular YouTube videos on IELTS vocabulary and how they are actually BS Lesson two we're going to show you what actual band seven eight and nine vocabulary looks like So we're going to show you some essays and because a lot of people talk about high level vocabulary in simple words and complex words But they don't really know what those what those are or what those look like So we're going to show you that on Wednesday and then on Friday in lesson three We're going to give you a step-by-step vocabulary improvement plan so that you can learn Vocabulary effectively and more importantly use vocabulary effectively on test day. So let's look at the myths and the BS so if you enter IELTS vocabulary into YouTube and you sort by page views or video views the two most popular Videos on YouTube related to IELTS vocabulary are these use these five words to score high and IELTS speaking 2.4 million views so 2.4 million people have watched that video and Memorize 1800 words in 18 hours nearly a million people have watched this now first of all do not go to these videos and Be nasty to the people who made them or leave nasty comments or say anything negative This is not about being negative and it's not about bashing people. It's not about that It's about giving you guys the right information and the two most popular videos on IELTS vocabulary and YouTube Perfectly illustrate the two main problems when it comes to learning vocabulary So let's look at the first one use these five words to score high in the IELTS speaking test So if I was speaking to the person who made this video I would simply ask them these questions because what they are saying is learn five words And you'll get a high score on the IELTS speaking test So what I would say to them is number one is the examiner of fool Is the examiner an idiot? I don't think they are I think it's their job to do speaking tests day in day out and are you going to fool them with five special words so imagine this imagine you go into the speaking test and Your vocabulary is okay Let's say it's at a band five band six level and then you say these five words Is the examiner are going to be fooled into thinking you have an amazing vocabulary? No, because they're going to be basing your vocabulary score on all of the words you use not just the five words So it's just a basic misunderstanding of how the examiners are thinking about your speaking score Will you use more than five words? Hopefully all right hopefully in the IELTS speaking test You're going to use more than five words and you're being judged on all of the words you're using not five So is it a good idea to just learn five good words? No, it would be a silly idea Will you be asked about a range of different topics? Yes, and the examiner will be thinking and listening for topic-specific words Are you able to use topic-specific words for a range of different topics? Just learning five words is not going to help you with that and it's saying a word evidence of a wide vocabulary No memorizing a word just thinking about a word and using a word is not evidence that you have a wide-ranging Vocabulary you need to know how to use a range of different words not just five words So two point four million people who follow this video and if you look at the comments Everybody is saying thank you and how amazing it is because people are desperate They really want some sort of magic system That's going to mean that they don't have to do any work and get the score that they need and that's just BS Because there are no high-level words. There are no magic words. There are no diamond words There are no golden words band-line words or impressive words if you are watching videos that talk about these then just switch them off and They are not showing you the right way to do things If you are at a school and I've seen this many times where schools will get a booklet or like Like they'll create their own textbook and call it like diamond words or band-line words and give it to their students It's just a list of words That school is more interested in your money than there are in your IELTS results. There are Appropriate words. There are accurate words and that's it. That's the only way to think about it. Think about how you Speak in your native language Think about the last conversation you had with someone. Did you go into that conversation and think? How many diamond words can I use or how many high-level words can I use? No, you just use the words that were appropriate and hopefully you use them accurately And those are the only two things that you think about when you're speaking in your native language Or you're writing in your native language So why do you think this is any different when you're doing IELTS test? Really comes from people looking for an easy way out a short cut a magic solution Because IELTS is very hard and it's a very high-stakes test People are pretty desperate and they will listen to people who are basically lying to them If somebody's talking about these things that they're lying to you. They're they're marketing to you They're not interested in helping you And this is a very good quote. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig All right, you might have heard of this quote before I can take a pig and put lipstick on it It's still a pig. I can take a student who is at a band five and I can give them five words and Even teach them how to use those five words perfectly, but they're still a band five student They're not going to move from a band five to a band seven until their whole vocabulary Moves up to that level teaching them like five words is like putting lipstick on a pig Still a pig and by the way Do not again do not go to the person who made that video and start saying nasty things to them That's not what it's about and it's about helping you guys as much as possible so that one is Nonsense all right. How about this one memorize 1800 words in 18 hours? So you can probably tell from the title that this might not be that reliable. So Is learning a list of words a good idea? So ignore the fact that this this video is about learning 1800 words in 18 hours Most of the advice out there most of the schools out there are teaching IELTS vocabulary in this way Learning some sort of list of words. So either a list of words with the meanings in English or a list of words with the translations in it Does this actually help? So these are the questions that I would ask those those people making those videos Number one, is it a memorization test? Is IELTS a memorization test? Are they testing memorization? No, it's a language test. You cannot improve your language ability You cannot improve your ability to produce language and discuss topics by memorizing stuff It's just not a memorization test. It's like trying to put a square peg into a round hole Do you have to use the word? Yes, the key there is use There's a massive difference between learning a list of words and learning the meanings and being able to use those words You have to understand way more than that for example spelling pronunciation style use grammar collocations None of these are taught When you learn a list of words because you're learning those words out of context You're not actually learning them in the way that that most people learn new vocabulary my son is four years old and I read to him every night one of the reasons why I read to him every night is to improve his vocabulary What I don't do is go home and say Tom. Here's a list of ten words to read Please memorize these and I've even seen this with some kids like they should some parents show their kids these like Videos that just say like duck ball like trying to teach them English like that's not really helping them and Does it take time to learn vocabulary? Yes, most people Many many studies academic studies have shown most people can only learn between 10 and 20 words a day Some people even fewer than that. Do you think you could learn 1800 words in 18 hours? No, and why do people believe that again? They're desperate. They want a shortcut. They want an easy way of doing things and Another quote a little knowledge is a dangerous thing like imagine that I got this camera I could Take this camera and give it to a stranger walking past my office and say watch one YouTube video on how to photography like they could get that little bit of knowledge and Would they be able to then become a professional photographer? No Learning lists of words is a dangerous thing. A little bit of knowledge is a very very dangerous thing So the top three ways to summarize the top three ways to lower your score That's the whole reason for this first video if you're doing these things you are lowering your score number one focus on a small number of high-level or band nine or High-level words or band diamond words or whatever your school calls them is a terrible idea You are not improving your vocabulary and you're probably using those words incorrectly Memorizing lists of words is a terrible idea because again, you're not using those words correctly You have to use the words not memorize them and number three focusing on speed Trying to do things as quickly as possible Trying to apply that to any other job that you're trying to do is doing things as quickly as possible A good way to do things not when you're trying to learn how to do things properly So instead of focusing on speed focus on trying to do things effectively So those are the myths those are the things that are BS and What we're going to look at in lesson 2 is a lot of you talk about band 7 band 8 band 9 vocabulary What does that actually look like? Well? We've already talked about in this video that there's no such thing really as band 9 vocabulary It's not like you look at an essay and every single word is like this There's like amazing vocabulary band 9 essays have some simple words some complex words some High-level words some lower-level words We're going to look at what that actually looks like and then on Friday We're going to look at our vocabulary improvement plan Hopefully you enjoyed that if you need any extra help or you want extra information on vocabulary Straightaway, you don't want to wait until Wednesday go to isle-to-advantages.com vocabulary you'll be able to find everything that you need there and you'll help with writing speaking and all for free and You'll find a lot of like Free PDFs and free gifts and stuff there All you have to do is just go there and have a look if you don't have to enter that you can just Google IELTS advantage or Google IELTS advantage vocabulary and Google will take you there if you need extra help if you want Some advice or you want to work with us or you want to help and some extra help you can send me an email and either myself or Ruth here will reply to you or one of our other team will reply to you and And they will get back to you probably within 24 hours We are very busy at the moment though a lot of people emailing us so might be tomorrow before we get back to you And hopefully you find that interesting Let me just check the comments To see if any of you guys have any questions because a lot of the stuff we talked about today It's probably the opposite to what you have been taught or what you've learned so let me Have a look first quit is there any book for vocabulary as I've already said most vocabulary books Are simply lists of vocabulary the best way to learn vocabulary is actually just reading English just reading books and there's no particular book that you want to read just read in English every day and we'll talk a lot about that on Friday when we give you the Vocabulary improvement plan a lot of you are asking for a book about IELTS or a book about vocabulary No, there aren't any there are some but it's not an effective way to improve your vocabulary See It's only showing me the last sort of 10 comments so can't read the other ones, but Muhammad says we need more of these videos go to our YouTube channel And you'll find a lot more of the videos or go to our website and you'll find a lot more videos Okay, so Thank you to everybody who's saying thank you. Sorry. I can only read Facebook will only show me the last like 10 comments and most of them are just thank you, but Thank you very much for saying thank you. Hopefully you find that lesson useful We're going to look at real Essays and talk about the band scores that they would get on Wednesday at the same time 12 p.m UK time and I'll see you then. Thank you very much guys And if you need any help feel free to get in touch. Bye. Bye