Academic Writing Course: Mastering the IELTS Writing Tasks

Syllabus

Week One:

·         Introduction to Academic Writing and the IELTS exam.

·         Overview of the writing tasks of the IELTS exam.

·         Analysis of excellent and poorly-written articles.

·         Practice through writing a short introductory paragraph.

IELTS Evaluation Criteria:

·         Task achievement

·         Coherence and cohesion

·         Lexical resource

·         Grammatical range

Week Two: Writing Task 1 – Describing charts and tables

·         Analyzing charts and diagrams.

·         Defining important information and connecting them at both the language and meaning levels.

·         Writing full reports for each type of chart.

·         Learning the academic terms used for description.

Week Three: Writing Task 2 – Academic Articles

-          Understanding the types of articles:

·         Opinion

·         Discussion

·         Problem-solution

·         Advantages and disadvantages

-          Writing an attractive introduction and a clear conclusion.

-          Building the main paragraphs and supporting them with real-life examples.

Week Four: Language improvement:

-          Using connectors correctly.

-          Enriching academic terms.

-          Rephrasing sentences,

-          Writing a concise paragraph in academic language.

Week Five: Time strategies and preparation for the exam

-          Learning to plan within only five minutes.

-          Distributing time on the tasks.

-          Writing quickly without jeopardizing quality.

-          Simulating an actual exam for an hour.

Week Six: Practice and Final Evaluation

-          Experiencing a full exam (tasks 1 and 2)

-          Receiving performance analysis and an individualized development plan.

-          Revising all strategies.

-          Assignments, projects, and evaluation.

Evaluation Activities:

-          Weekly writing assignments.

-          Final academic article.

-          Quizzes to measure progress.

-          Discussions and practice.

Evaluation Criteria:

-          Class discussions (5%)

-          Quizzes (10%)

-          Weekly assignments: (25%)

-          Academic paragraph (20%)

-          Final article (40%)

Obligatory material:

-          A computer or a smartphone with good internet connection.

-          A notebook.

-          Pdf files received from the trainer.

-          Zoom or Google Meet applications.

Voluntary material:

Academic Writing for beginners

Oxford Learner’s Dictionary

Grammarly free copy

Additional material:

Work sheets and practice exercises

Short academic articles

Educational videos on YouTube

Support groups on Telegram or WhatsApp