Episode 15
Welcome to this episode.
Before we I get into the main topic…..
I wanted to announce that my OET Membership Programme will begin 1st March 2021. This membership programme will guide you, help you, support you get the score you need .
Let me briefly explain how my membership programme will help you achieve your score. My membership programme will
1. Show how to practice and improve your reading skills, your listening skills, your writing skills and speaking skills
2. Teach you exactly what the examiner wants from you and how to give it to them
3. Teach you the most successful answer strategies and provide lots of practice
4. Organise your time, how to create a practical study timetable and create time to study, no matter how busy you are, so that you can make meaningful progress in your OET preparation, everyday
5. Teach you how to improve your vocabulary
6. Teach you how to improve your grammar
7. How to have the right study mindset that will help you get the score you need.
8. Give you the guidance, support and essential feedback on how YOU need to improve
This membership is not like other membership programmes that are available. The problem with the other memberships is that there are so many students in there and you become just another number. You get lost in a sea of other students, you never get your questions answered and rarely get the feedback you need that is so vital in helping you to improve.
With this in mind, I aim to keep the number of students to minimum so that I give each of you the attention and guidance that you need. Quality over quantity, always!
So, this means that spaces are limited and when I feel the group is big enough, I will close the group and you won’t be able to join. To join my membership programme it costs just £24.99 per month and you cancel at anytime, so you could join for a month and then cancel your membership, or you can stay for as long as you need the training, it all depends on where you are in your OET journey, how much help you need and when your test is. But YOU ARE IN CONTROL. I will be there to help you every step of the way for how ever long you need me.
So, what do you need to do if you are interested? I have left the link to register your interest in the show notes, so just click the link and just type in your details and I’ll send you more information.
Ok, so on with this episode.
This Episode is all about OET writing and my top tips for success.
So firstly, get into the habit of always reading the task first. The temptation is to go straight to the meat of task and start reading and selecting case notes. This is a huge mistake because the case notes need to be seen in light of the task that you have been given. So you need to understand who you are, who you are writing to and why you are writing to them. Only then will you know what case notes to include and which to exclude.
Next always read the first part of the case notes. It’s usually a sentence just before the main case notes begin. It tells you some vital information and most students don’t read it, and to be fair it can be easily missed, but after listening to this episode, you will never make this mistake again. It normally says something like “you are a GP in the local clinic and the patient is 70 years old and your regular patient” it could give you more information, but this is just to give you some idea of the context of your writing.
Assume that today’s date is 15 May 2021. You have been Ms Bennet’s GP for two years and have been treating her recently following her hospitalisation for cardiac problems.
You are a nurse conducting a Nurse Home Visit as part of routine follow-up care after this patient’s recent hospital discharge.
By reading this, you immediately understand the setting and the context and will write accordingly
My bit of advice is, when your reading time is over, so the first five minutes of the test is purely reading, you’re not allowed to write, you just have to read the case notes. As soon as that time has finished and you can begin writing your letter, don’t jump into writing the letter first. Spend at least 5 minutes planning your letter. Organise your letter. You’ve just read the case notes and mentally decided which case notes you will use , which ones are relevant and which ones are not. You can’t possibly keep all that information in your head and organise your letter while writing it, and thinking about grammar, vocabulary. You have to get it out of your head on paper so that you organise it logically. You don’t write the letter but organise the which case notes will go in which paragraph, the structure, which case notes will you combine and how. Just notes/prompts. Once you have that thinking/planning process laid out, you can then focus on writing the letter with the help of the plan. You should also go back to the notes and quickly mark the notes you need.
This is such a vital step and a lot of students don’t bother because they either think it’s a waste of time but they fail to realise it wil actually save time because you are concentrating on one thing at a time. Or they think they know what they’re doing, they write letters like these everyday and they don’t need to do that. I agree you know exactly what you’re doing but remember, this is an English test and you are being judged on a criteria that you need to adhere to, so you have to make sure that you are doing that.
To get good at doing this you have to make sure you practice it. Get writing tasks, read the case notes for 5 minutes and then plan for 5 minutes. Time it. Organise the paragraphs, the notes, think of grammar and vocabulary.
Another bit advice is when you are selecting case notes, planning your letter, writing your letter, organising it, always be in the shoes of the recipient. Always ask yourself at each stage of the writing test, what would they need to know, how would they want the information to be structured? Would they want it structured by order of importance or chronologically? What makes more sense, what is more logical with the case notes you have in front of you?
Which leads me to my next bit of advice, don’t use set letter structures because you will be marked down for this. The examiner will be able to tell, because they are trained to do so, if you have not taken into account the case notes and written the letter accordingly and just used a memorised fixed letter structure instead.
The examiner wants to see flexibility and to see if you can adapt letter structures to the case notes that you are presented with and its appropriate to the person you are writing to. Again, go back to thinking about how the recipient of the letter would want the information to be presented.
The next thing is proofreading. A lot of students, in fact most students don’t bother to proofread at all. Once they get to the end of the test, they’ve finished writing their letter, they have a few minutes left until the end of the test and instead of using that time to read through the letter and correct obvious mistakes they’ll relax and just be glad it’s over. It’s not over until the examiner says it is and there are still marks you can get or rather marks you can save by correcting any grammar, vocabulary or structural mistakes or any other improvements you can make.
Think of the marking criteria, and as you proofread, go through each criteria and judge your writing, try to think like the examiner. This takes real practice but you must do this.
I suggest proofreading as you go as well as at the end. So after every sentence, read it back, does it make sense. Then after each paragraph and then again read the whole letter from beginning to end.
There is a lot that I have talked about for you to think about. Some of this advice you may already know, or heard before but how much of this are you actually doing, are you actually implementing any of this? There’s no point having the knowledge, that won’t get you the score you need. You need to implement what you learn, practice it, get feedback and implement the feedback and keep doing that until you are consistently getting the score you need in mock tests. That’s when you’ll get the score.
I really hope you have found this helpful, let me know your thoughts, leave a review, like and share and as I mentioned at the beginning, the link to register your interest for my OET Membership programme is in the show notes.
Take care and I’ll speak to you I the next episode.