Are you having trouble with your pronunciation? Check out this interview with a speech therapist!

I like to keep up with what’s happening in the online IELTS world, but somehow this gem of an interview slipped under my radar.  Ben of IELTSPodcast.com recently spoke with Esther Bruhl of speakmoreclearly.com about what an IELTS student can do to improve the quality of their speaking.  Esther shares a number of great tips for honing the clarity of your voice.  Here is a little excerpt from the interview to whet your appetite:

 Ben: What should a student do to communicate more clearly?

Esther: For non-English speaking background languages, the key is to move your mouth more.  Many languages tend to be spoken with a more closed mouth because that is what the language demands.  When we speak English, we actually drop our jaw more and move our mouth more.  Doing this will immediately make your pronunciation clearer.  Listen, repeat, pretend and mimic, too.  One of the keys to pronouncing and speaking more clearly is to listen to native English speakers using headphones.  Doing this allows the listener to stimulate the auditory nerve in a much stronger fashion.  Listening to the BBC is great without headphones is great, but to improve your speaking a student really needs to copy and mimic speech patterns.

Listen to the entire interview by clicking here!

The Australian immigration process is going to change within the next couple of days

Barry Johnson of Immistay.com has kindly written this article for ieltsielts.com to help explain what is happening:

SkillSelect commences 1^st July 2012: Act now!

As at of the 1^st of July 2012 SkillSelect (http://www.immi.gov.au/skills/skillselect/) will be introduced in Australia.  This will be a major change in the Australian migration process.  These changes are designed to limit the successful visa applicants to only the very best.  It will involve in the applicant lodging an expression of interest online to the Australian department of immigration and citizenship.  These expressions of interests are reviewed via a computer system that looks for the finest applicants who meet the selection criteria.   This will involve looking at the applicants with the strongest English language ability, the most work experience and the highest qualifications.  It is these successful applicants who will be issued with an invitation to apply.  The SkillSelect program will also be subject to a quota system for each occupation.  The department of immigration and citizenship has provided an FAQ regarding SkillSelect, which you may be interested in accessing (http://www.immi.gov.au/skills/skillselect/index/faqs/).  I suggest you have a good look at this to get an idea of the implications of these changes and their impact upon your circumstances.

There are some advantages to this system.  Under the current system, there is a waiting period of twelve to eighteen months or more for your skills point visa to be granted.  This is due to the backlog of applications.  With SkillSelect, you effectively jump the cue.  It is designed to eliminate any backlog due to the highly selective nature of the system.  The department of immigration and citizenship will control very carefully who is invited to apply.  After the 1^st of July 2012, if invited to apply you will move quickly through the system, much more so than under the system currently in place.

After reviewing the information from migration agents it is highly recommended to lodge your application before midnight on the 30^th of June 2012.  This is before SkillSelect commences.  If you have a passing score in the skills, migration points test or know that you are eligible, act now.   The future of the points tested skilled migration looks bleak.  Have a look at the following pulled from the department of immigration and citizenship information pdf (full document link below):

From the 1^st July 2012 intending migrants, both in and outside of Australia may submit an expression of interest (EOI) for a 189, 190 or 489 visa.  From the 1^st of July 2012, points tested skilled migration visas granted outside of Australia (subclass 175, 176 and 475) will be closed for all new applicants.  From the 1^st of January 2013, points tested skilled migration visas granted in Australia (subclass 885, 886 and 487) will be closed for all new applications.  http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/general-skilled-migration/pdf/points-tested-visas.pdf

There is also speculation that under SkillSelect that there will be new visa categories and possibly the elimination of the sub visa categories.  The reason for this is that not all the SkillSelect changes have been announced.  In other words, it is better to be safe than sorry.

Because of the limited time before the 1^st of July 2012, I would recommend that you contact your migration agent and lodge.  If you do not have a migration agent, I would highly recommend ACACIA.  To receive a discount on the initial consultation just mention Immistay and the 10% discount when you call.   http://www.acacia-au.com/ or call +061 0292300888.

(Video) Run through this video series to brush up on your grammar

I’m very happy to see mrthoth is back making his videos on English grammar (which are by far the best I’ve come across online).  If your written grammar is weak, these videos are a must-see.  Visit his YouTube channel here to watch all 55 videos.

Grammar is a cornerstone of the IELTS writing process.  User mrthoth’s latest video ‘What is a verb?’ is a real straightforward look at how a complex English sentence can be built upon a very basic partnership between a subject and verb.  In the essays I mark every day, I often see students that try to write long, elaborate sentences in an effort to impress their reader.  The problem is that they do not fully understand very rudimentary grammatical practices.  Thus, they are trying to build complex sentence structures on a shaky foundation, which of course leads to problems.

Here is mrthoth’s ‘What is a verb?’:

11 year old achieves IELTS 7.5 band! Congratulations Sitara Akbar!

(Image taken from DAWN.com)

What a motivating story!  Here’s an excerpt (for the rest of the article visit http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/13/pakistani-girl-set-new-world-record-in-o-levels.html):

KARACHI: A Pakistani girl has become the youngest student in the world to have passed the British Ordinary Level (O’Level) examination.

Sitara Brooj Akbar, at the age of 11, passed six O’level subjects including Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

In addition to this honour, Sitara also holds the title of being the youngest Pakistani candidate of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) and successfully attained seven bands out of nine, scoring 7.5 in the testing system.