Without a doubt, the formulas that I developed for writing the IELTS writing tasks have by God’s grace had an unprecedented success. There has been a 100% success rate in the writing module among all our candidates that have sat the IELTS since the introduction of the formulas in both General Training (GT) and Academics (AC). As a matter of fact, none of the candidates scored below band 7 in the writing module. However, what are these formulas? How did they come about? What is special about them? Answer to these questions is exactly what I intend to explore in my usual story-telling format in this piece. So, sit back, relax and let’s have fun as I take you through the journey of the historical development of the “magic” formulas.

Initially, when I started teaching IELTS, I must admit that I didn’t quite appreciate the exact difference between teaching IELTS and teaching English language. This is because, I sort of transmuted from teaching the latter to the former. To be fair though, all my candidates met up with their required bands. However, this was largely due to the fact that most sat the AC and didn’t quite require high band scores-most were on the average 6.5 overall band. You must agree with me that this is pretty low compared with GT demands right!

Definitely, it was a brutal wake-up call for me when my candidates gradually turned from AC to GT. The reason for this was the Canadian immigration policy wherein IELTS was also a prerequisite but guess what? The required band score was higher than what I was used to-minimum was 8,7,7,7, and an overall of 7. This meant that my candidate must score a minimum of 7 in writing but the majority of them scored 6.5 prior to this time. What do I do? How do I go about this? I have to deliver, I just have to deliver, I cannot give excuses. I must deliver! Those were the thoughts running through my head.

The fact is that the new discovery that I couldn’t measure-up with the new demands of my clients was something I was never going to accept. I loathe failure and excuses, so I must find a way. Of course, the believe that ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way’ spurred me on but mere believe wasn’t enough as I still couldn’t deliver as expected. That was very depressing, indeed one of the lowest points of my teaching career.

Clearly, something had to give, I had to do something practical and stopped wishing away my monstrous challenges. First, I enrolled in the Cambridge course for training ILETS teachers to learn new things and discover what I wasn’t getting right but did it do the magic? Your guess is good as mine. I had to figure out something else. Second, I started engaging in more researches to find out and learn other things. Although this improved me significantly as a tutor and also positively affected the performance of my candidates but it didn’t quite solve the problem like I wanted. Third, I started going to the hall to take the test to try out some of my strategies to ascertain which worked out best so I could adapt them and teach my clients. That was the turning point as I was able to come up with strategies that worked on a somewhat consistent level. Yes! This is it, a good result on a consistent level, but then came a new challenge.

Unexpectedly, I never knew that having come up with the strategies, a number of my clients will still find it difficult to understand and apply. I love to teach and I consider myself based on my records a very good teacher but clients’ inability to grasp the strategies application was unacceptable. Then came a suggestion from one of my favourite candidates, Ronke in Lagos Nigeria, she suggested, “Mr Chris, don’t you think that it would be better to give me a kind of formula to work with so I can better grasp this your strategy and also have a reference point instead of calling or sending a message all the time?” You would have guessed, that right there was the inspiration.

I immediately started working on the formulas with her right there and then. Before I met her, she had attempted IELTS about 5 times and scored either 6.5 or lower in writing in all of them, so she was most interested in the writing module. Before I left her place that day, we came up with TSIC (topic sentence, supporting sentence, instance sentence and conclusive sentence) as the formula for writing the body paragraphs. It worked like magic as she mastered them immediately. She pestered me for formulas for introduction and conclusion which I couldn’t come up with at that time but I made sure that she understood the strategies and precepts and could effectively write them. You guessed right, she aced her subsequent writing test with either 7.5 or 7, I cannot remember very precisely now. If you’re reading this, thank you very much for that inspiration ma’am! I’m still grateful.

Based on demands from some other clients especially in Lagos like Ife, Oyemhen among others, by God’s grace I was able to eventually develop the strategy for writing introduction into a formula as-GSTS (generic sentence, specific sentence, thesis sentence and structure sentence). Then came the formula for writing tasks one of both GT and AC which were much easier.

Due to popular demand I had no choice but to author books that teach IELTS because I realised that there were no books that directly taught IELTS. That was the birth of “IELTS Nitty-gritty: Easy and Practical Formulas to Ace IELTS (General Training)” and “IELTS Nitty-gritty: Easy and Practical Formulas to Ace IELTS (Academic)”. You can get your copies here (you can help me put the link here please)

While writing the books, there was a need to complete the formulas and make sure that there was one, not just for each paragraph but for every sentence for easy mastery by the candidates. Thus, formulas for writing every single sentence and paragraph required in the IELTS writing module in both GT and AC were developed/detailed in the books mentioned above and there has been a 100% success rate in writing since then among our candidates.

While giving all thanks to God, I can authoritatively confirm to you that no one has used the formulas and scored below band 7 in writing-the average score is 7.5 and 8. As a matter of fact we still have the record that everyone that has deployed the strategies and formulas in the books have aced their overall modules. These claims are verifiable, you can check https://www.edupalinstitute.com  

Ladies and gentlemen, and that was how I was able to come up with what people now refer to as the “magic formulas”. I hope you enjoyed the story. Remember that these formulas are detailed in the books stated above and also simplified by my humble self in a course that you can get here https://www.edupalinstitute.com, you can enrol in the course and ace your test at a sitting. You may also support us by sharing this info with others that may need it.

You can look forward to more writeups from me. Trust you enjoyed this one. Kindly leave me your feedback in the comment section below. You can also suggest what you want me or any other person to write on next.

Stay blessed!

Chris Ozo Agbata.