How long does it take to go from Band 6 to Band 7?

No, you can’t go from Band 6 to Band 7 after only a few writing assignments IF you have significant vocabulary and grammar issues. Anyone who tells you that you can jump a Band quickly is lying.

Many students join my course after trying lots of other self-study courses, writing correction services, and learning centre IELTS classes. They find after completing these other courses that their Band scores don’t change much, and sometimes their scores don’t change at all. The reason is that writing improvement REQUIRES a lot of writing WITH TEACHER FEEDBACK on every writing assignment, and it requires that you revise your work and have it rechecked by the teacher. Just having your writing corrected doesn’t help YOU learn because you are not DOING anything. Learning to write involves writing, not reading about writing. If you are not revising your work and getting it re-checked, you have NO IDEA if you have understood the feedback. However, providing this level of personalized feedback is time consuming and expensive, and that’s why nobody wants to provide it.

Toronto IELTS Prep is completely different. This learning system is based on giving you detailed feedback, requiring that you revise your work, and then re-checking it. This is NOT an essay correction service. This is actual teaching. I will coach you step-by-step how to become a good writer.

Nobody wants to tell you the truth about how long it can take to go up a full Band. Everyone wants you to believe that it’s easy, that tips and tricks will help you make that jump quickly. This is absolutely not true – believing this will delay your progress.

Research by Cambridge and CCLB (Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks) shows that it takes the average student 200 to 250 hours to go up one Band score. That’s if you need to raise all four skills by one band. However, if you are at Band 7 or higher on Reading, Listening, and Speaking, but lower than Band 7 on writing, you can progress very quickly.

The fact is that Band 7 means you are a competent writer. It means your writing causes ZERO confusion for the reader. Doctors in Canada need Band 7 in every category for this reason: if what they write causes confusion, it can KILL you!

Getting your writing to this level is one of the most valuable skills you can ever learn. It will improve the quality of your entire life. This is the best investment you can make in your future because you will come out of this program a competent writer.

Call me today and I’ll make sure that you get started today. You can reach me at 416 822 2637, at jan@torontoieltsprep.com, or on WhatsApp at Jan Waginski.

Q. Why have I been stuck on Band 6.5 in writing for so long? All my other scores are much higher!

The main reason is that writing is the hardest skill to develop. In speaking, sentence structure and vocabulary matter much less: the listener can’t tell where one sentence ends and another begins. In terms of vocabulary, our spoken vocabulary is MUCH smaller than our written vocabulary.

As well, Band 7 is really hard because Band 7 is advanced level English. Going from Band 6.5 to Band 7 is a big jump. Band 6 is intermediate level English. Band 7 is advanced level English.

• Band 7 means your writing causes ZERO confusion for the reader.
• Band 7 means your writing feels effortless.
• Band 7 means your writing has a wide variety of complex sentences, most of which are FLAWLESS.

It’s extremely difficult to get to Band 7 on your own because a wide variety of problems will keep you stuck at Band 6. Any content development issues, vocabulary problems, or grammar mistakes that cause ANY confusion for the reader will automatically prevent you from reaching Band 7.

An experienced teacher can help you shortcut the learning process by telling you EXACTLY what’s wrong with your writing and how you can improve. An experienced teacher will show you what you need to focus on in your improvement plan so that you don’t waste time on things that won’t make much difference to your score.

This level of improvement does not happen without a lot of work!

Your writing topic on the exam comes from a pool of THOUSANDS of topics. A couple lessons will not make much difference unless you are already getting Band 7+ on every skill except writing. ONLY if you’re getting 7+ on Reading, Listening, and Speaking can you get to Band 7 on writing quickly.

Q. Some people in other programs say they went up a Band really quickly, after only a few lessons. Is it true that you can go up one Band quickly?

Maybe. It depends on whether you have an IELTS problem or an English problem.

Some people ONLY have an IELTS problem. I have helped people go up a full band in only ONE class. All of them had the following characteristics in common:

• They had a very high level of oral fluency.
• They made only a few grammar mistakes when speaking.
• They had a very large vocabulary.
• They had only a few grammar mistakes in their writing.
• They had only a few vocabulary mistakes in their writing.

What was their problem? They had many problems either with the organization of their writing or their content choices. Essentially, they were not answering the question properly but their grammar and vocabulary were very good or excellent. Even a native English speaker can receive a low score on writing if they answer the question in the wrong way. For example, if the question only requires a comparison of two perspectives but you write about why one perspective is better than the other, you’ll receive a low score on Task Response.

This is an easy problem to fix! IELTS marks your writing based on content (Task Response), organization (Coherence and Cohesion), and delivery (Lexical Range and Grammar). The content and organization requirements are easy to understand. The key to getting high marks on Task Response is to answer every part of the question precisely and with sufficient detail. The key to getting high marks on Coherence and Cohesion is to organize your writing in a way that is easy to understand. The reason why these two requirements are easy to understand is because THEY ARE THE SAME IN EVERY LANGUAGE! Answer the question given by your teacher (not a different question and not just part of the question) and organize your answer in a way that’s easy to understand. That’s it! It doesn’t matter what language you’re writing in: there is ONE WAY to do this correctly and it has not changed since Aristotle wrote Rhetoric 2400 years ago.

However, this is not the typical IELTS student! The students you see in promotional videos who say they went up a Band quickly already had a high level of fluency. That does not mean YOU will go up a Band quickly! Don’t get tricked by testimonials that do not represent the typical student. These students only had trouble with two out of four categories on the IELTS criteria: Task Response and Coherence and Cohesion. They DIDN’T have much trouble with Lexical Resource or Grammatical Range and Accuracy. These take much more time to improve.

Most people don’t have an IELTS problem. They have an English problem.

Building your vocabulary and improving your grammar take much longer. If your only problems are with content and organization, I can help you very quickly. If your vocabulary is inadequate and you make many grammar mistakes, it will take much longer to reach Band 7, which is a high level of writing. No tips and tricks will help you.

According to Cambridge,

“It takes approximately 200 guided learning hours for a language learner to progress from one level of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) to the next.”

https://support.cambridgeenglish.org/hc/en-gb/articles/202838506-Guided-learning-hours

That means if you’re at a Band 6 and you need Band 7, you’re looking at about 200-250 hours of GUIDED instruction. This is equivalent to two full high school courses (in Ontario, high school courses are 110 hours of class time, plus assignments and homework). Basically, you need to take the equivalent of grade 11 English and grade 12 English, but with a focus solely on IELTS tasks. That 200-250 hours DOES NOT INCLUDE STUDYING TIME.

Teacher feedback is the most important part of learning to write. It is the fastest way to learn to write. That’s why it is a central feature of the Toronto IELTS Prep training system. After each writing assignment, you’ll receive feedback from me. You will then revise your writing based on my feedback and submit your work again. I will re-check it, explain in detail how you should improve it, and provide follow-up exercises. Your writing will improve after each assignment!

The bottom line is this: Yes, you can go up one band score in writing in ONE month (or less) IF your general fluency, reading comprehension, and listening comprehension are good. 

If you need help with IELTS writing, get in touch. I strongly suggest starting with the $95 diagnostic assessment (CAD not USD). Within 24 hours, I'll check your writing and give you detailed written feedback with a Band score breakdown. Then, within 1-3 days, we'll sit down for an hour over Zoom and go over your writing together. You will have a complete understanding of the writing requirements and EXACTLY what you need to do to get Band 7+ on IELTS writing. 

For many students, this is the only training they need to get Band 7+ on their next attempt.

If you need additional writing training, I provide a very competitive rate for writing feedback. However, this is quite different from typical writing corrections. With Toronto IELTS Prep, you have the opportunity to revise your work for a second round of feedback and corrections. This is an extremely important step because it shows both of us if YOU understand how to fix the problems with your writing. If the teacher just fixes your work for you, you will not learn much from this kind of feedback. 

When you sign up for the diagnostic assessment, you will also get access to my online course, which includes bulletproof templates for all seven essay prompts as well as 100+ model responses written by former IELTS examiners.

Don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions: jan@torontoieltsprep.com.