29/05/2025
What are the most effective strategies for improving IELTS writing skills specifically for non-native speakers?
The best strategy is twofold:
One. Read
It is very important to read the kinds of essays you want to be able to write. This is time-consuming; there is no shortcut. You need to keep reading academic write-ups, be it research papers, journals, or books, to write academic essays.
Then you need to read band 9 sample essays. Be cautious about this, though. Many platforms provide deliberately overcomplicated essays to make you think their English is that good. Do not fall for that.
Two: Write
You cannot work on your writing if you are not writing yourself. When writing, consider all four writing assessment criteria followed by IELTS examiners.
Lexical resource. If you are writing an essay on education, and you find yourself empty of topic-related vocabulary, it is high time to work on your education vocabulary. Same goes for writing any chart. Writing a pie chart and cannot describe percentages and portions well? Work on that.
Coherence and cohesion
How well connected your essay, report, or letter is. Use synonyms and pronouns more than cohesive devices to do well in that section.
Grammatical range and accuracy
For accuracy, check it through Grammarly, Google Docs, or any AI. They will tell you if you are making any mistakes. Mostly, students make mistakes in subject-verb agreement, pluralization, article use, and tense. Pay special attention to them.
Task achievement/task response: Probably the most technical of all is this criterion. No machine will actually be able to tell you accurately how well you did in this. For this, you need to have it assessed by a tutor or have a look at your essays after some time. This will force you to look at your own write-ups from a different perspective.
All in all, read generally and specifically, then write, but follow assessment criteria that examiners use.
