Occupational English Test Preparation: Reading Section
The reading section of the OET exam is for some the trickiest part of the whole exam. Part A in particular can be quite intimidating because of its very short time limit. To get through this part, the key strategy is to always be very conscious of time. The very first thing to do is of course to skim through the texts and read the titles in order to get an idea of which text is talking about what. The headlines often contain information on whom/what the text is about, where the information is from and how it might be relevant to the general topic. Also, it is a good way to see what type of information each text might contain. Sometimes, the texts are about a person’s personal experience with a disease or issue. Other times, it could be just a table containing statistics or other types of data. It could also be a health professional’s professional opinion, the description of an illness or disease, or even how to treat or manage a particular condition.
Once you have identified the subject of each text, you are ready to start answering some of the questions. Each time that a blank space comes up in the summary and answer sheet, you already know where the information that you are looking for is most likely going to be. You can then go straight to that text and skim through it quickly to get the information that you are looking for. Be careful when looking at data however! There can be some traps laid out for you. Really pay attention to the way that the questions are worded. “Adult men under 70” might be labelled as “males 18-69” in a text. You must make sure to understand what is being asked of you as well as what the text is actually telling you.
As always, you have been keeping a steady eye on your watch during this whole time. You notice that you have about one minute left and unfortunately, you know that there are still too many blanks on your paper for you to realistically hope to finish everything in time. Do not despair! It is now time to realize that the last points that you are going to scrape up are not going to come from finding the answers directly from the text. Read through the final questions and try to answer them either using your memory of the texts that you have just read or just common knowledge. Sometimes, all that the sentence is missing is just a preposition or an adjective which is an easy way to score an extra point or two. Fill in everything that you can and place your pencil down when they call the time, and be happy that you have accomplished all that you could.
Occupational English Test Preparation: How to Speak Without Getting Stuck
5 minutes may seem like a short time, but if you encounter a topic or situation that is unfamiliar, the 5 minutes can feel like an eternity.
OET speaking session is a dialogue between you (the health professional) and the interviewer (the patient). However, the majority of time is devoted to you to show off your speaking skills. The interviewer will be advised to speak minimally unless prompted by you with questions.
TIP 1
After the interviewer introduces the scenario, ask questions to clarify or establish the situation/concern more fully. e.g. So how long have you had this pain for? What is exactly is it about the drug that you are concerned about?
TIP 2
If you need more time to think about your response but you don’t want a big gap of silence, mirror or reflect the concerns or questions the interviewer raises. This is not only good for you to buy time but also a great way of expressing empathy and demonstrating that you comprehend fully what they are saying. e.g. So from what I can understand Mr/s …., you are worried about your son’s lack of concentration at school. I can see that it must have been so serious that you considered the possibility of an underlying medical complication. I am sure that coming up with a diagnosis would clear a lot of things up for you.
TIP 3
Don’t ever assume that the patient knows everything about the medical concern that they are coming to you with. That is why they are consulting with you. Describe and define every basic aspect of Ambien pro their health condition. e.g. Hypotension -> define it/ ask the patient if they fully understand what it is. Particularly if they have concerns with compliance, going into a bit more detail scientifically may be more persuasive for the patient.
TIP 4
If you need to explain to the patient about a certain procedure or therapy, ~remember!~ although the interviewer can see you, the examiner can’t as the role-play is voice recorded. Therefore, make a concerted effort to describe every little detail in words, however obvious it may sound. It is not the knowledge that they are grading you on but your speaking fluency. e.g. using a walking frame: be descriptive right down to which hand/foot goes where and when.
TIP 5
If you have no idea about the disease condition/treatment, hypothesise. e.g. That sounds like a respiratory condition which the doctor will be able to clarify to you about. However, from my understanding of respiratory conditions in general, it is important that you are supplied with sufficient oxygen and make sure that your airways are cleared of mucus or any foreign particles etc.
TIP 6
Remember to speak slowly ad clearly. This will not only stretch out the time and minimise the amount of mistakes that you may say but also dilute out any thick accents.
IELTS in a Nutshell – Be Prepared
The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is the English exam taken by over 1.4 million people around the world each year as a step towards an international career or education.
If you have taken up the challenge, congratulations and good luck. The biggest tip that I could give you would be this – BE PREPARED!
Like any girl I love surprises; a box of chocolates, a bunch of flowers. But when it comes to something as important as a test, I like to know what I am up against and what is expected of me well before I sit my bottom on that chair at crunch time.
If you are taking the IELTS test, make sure you know what is expected of you and set goals to make steps, even if they are small ones, to achieve those goals.
Make sure your goals are reasonable for each category (reading, writing, listening and speaking) and take into consideration that you may be weaker in some areas than others so allocate more time to work on these with your teacher.
Read ever piece of information or tip that you can, and keep an eye on this blog which includes some great advice on improving your skills by our expert tutors.
All About Cantonese
Before writing this blog I didn’t know anything about the Cantonese language so I decided to do some research and I came up with the following:
1. Cantonese is one of the most widely-spoken languages or dialects in China, is the main language of Hong Kong and is used by Chinese communities around the world.
2. Although it often plays second fiddle to Mandarin, which is considered the official language of mainland China, is has been around for about 2000 years compared to the 700-800 years of the former.
3. People who speak Cantonese don’t necessarily understand Mandarin and vice versa. I am sure a common misconception in Australia is that they are both very similar.
4. Like many Asian languages, Cantonese is tonal and it has at least six to nine tones that you need to master to be understood.
5. There is a great market out there in the world for this language skill.
Wow, the last point is definitely a reason to study the language if you are looking to stand out against others in your field of http://healthsavy.com expertise. What are you waiting for?
How to improve your IELTS Writing Skill
Some IELTS students often feel that editing an essay is a waste of time, or sometimes they cannot afford time to do this although they know it is necessary. This is a serious mistake as most writers, however excellent they are, still need to do editing to remove redundant ideas, or some simple mistakes. .JPG)
The purpose of editing is to make sure your essay is well-structured, logically developed, precise, focused and cohesive.
• You should go through every sentence line by line slowly. Take your time to check every single noun and verb in your essay to make sure they are written with correct grammar.
• Check the structure, the logicality and the flow of your essay. Make sure it has no redundant sentences or repeated ideas.
• Make sure that each topic sentence is followed by adequate explanation and example.
So please never forget spend at least 5-7 minutes at the end of IELTS Writing Test to edit/check your essay.
IELTS: Some hints to improve your reading skill
How to Improve your Reading Skills?This is something which every student strives for but many don’t know how to achieve this.
My task as an Ielts Reading teacher is to instruct and show you how this is done .
There are four (4) main skills that you need in order to do well in the Reading Module.
Firstly one of the main difficulties that students face is not having enough time to complete the test, it is therefore essential to read both efficiently and effectively. Previewing approximately 2 minutes per passage.
Study Key parts of the passage by skimming .Read the first paragraph which often focuses on the main idea.The first sentence of each paragraph usually expresses key points of paragraph known as the topic sentence ,generally the concluding paragraph provides a summary of the passage.
Secondly Interpreting the questions and questions – When you are looking at the questions, you need to recognise – what type of question you need to answer -gap-filling, multiple choice. Whether the questions requires a specific or a general answer. What form should the answer take – a number, date, reason. All this should take approx 2 minutes.
Thirdly, scanning text for specific answers approx a minute per person. Use time wisely. Locate key words, synonyms. The sentences around these words are likely to contain the answers.
Lastly, check your answers approximately 3 minutes. You need to check your answers after you have completed them if you have time return to the questions you have marked because you were unsure and decide which answers the best one .
So all these tips refer to time management how to spend your time wisely.
Some more helpful hints: there may be some words in the passage with which you are unfamiliar, check the context, look for a definition, identify the words place and purpose, look for connective words. Be aware of the use of connective words.
I guess this is for now, each week i’ll give you ways, tips and strategies on how to improve your Reading skills .
Learning a New Language
There are many reasons why people choose to learn a foreign language: for work, for travel, for study, for fun or for love. The list is endless. 
But what is the best way to learn? Now that depends on you. To find the answer you need to stop and ask yourself a few simple questions like, do I have time to commit to months of study or should I just get a taste of a language in a four-hour workshop on the weekend? Am I comfortable trying to speak a new language in front of a small group of people or am I too shy and would rather study one-on-one with a teacher instead?
We understand that everyone’s needs are different and so too is the amount of time and energy they have to commit to something like learning a new language. That’s why we have options. Check out our Courses page here http://www.sydneylanguagesolutions.com.au/courses and see if something takes your fancy. And remember what Italian film director Federico Fellini said, “A different language is a different vision of life.”
Is it necessary to learn Vietnamese tones at the beginner level. Why?
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning. Although some languages use pitch to express emotion, to emphasise, to compare or contrast ideas, tones in Vietnamese are used to distinguish words. That means the very tone attached to each word can fundamentally change the meaning of that word. Tonal phonemes in Vietnamese are called tonemes.
For example, one word with exactly the same spelling with a rising tone conveys a completely different meaning from similar word with a low – broken tone.
As a result, in learning Vietnamese, it is very crucial that the learner must try to memorise all the tones, how to pronounce them and write the tone correctly.
If the learners try to memorise the words in Romanised version (as in Lonely Planet), it may help the learner a bit in the first few weeks, but will not help in the long run. When the learner cannot remember to record the tones in the writing system, it is also very difficult for him/her to recollect the pronunciation and how to say the word correctly.
As each change in the tone will carry a different meaning of the word, the incorrect tone will seriously affect the meaning and the listeners’ comprehension of a sentence.
Therefore, always remember to memorise your tones if you want to learn Vietnamese seriously and not for a few weeks just to survive in the country 😉
Some facts about Thai Language
Sa-wad-dii ka! Hello!
My name is Shaye, I’m teaching Thai in Sydney Language Solution for while now and here’s my first blog on this Website. I used to write several blogs before I moved overseas and maybe it started my interest in language.
For my first blog entry, I’d like to tell you several facts about Thai Language.
1. Thai is a tonal language
I’m pretty sure many people and schools talk about this. Getting the tone right is very important in our language. It’s not just about the accent but it’s about the actual meaning of the word. We have many jokes about how people get the tone wrong and it got translated into something totally weird (or extremely funny). The most common one is:
maa1 (มา) means to come
and
maa5 (หมา) which means dog.
Now that you know about this fact, you better not get the tone wrong – ever!
So, if you are thinking of getting your own lessons, make sure those books have tone marks on them.
2. Thai words are repetitive
I did not realized this until one day; I got a requested from a friend to translate a beautiful Thai song. The translation was so cheesy and repetitive in English and it just sounds awful. My students also pointed this out, and so what I told them was…
“Thai language is very repetitive and exaggerative.” – it’s true, we love it!
In Thai, you can repeat adverbs and adjectives as much as you want until you are happy with how you want to exaggerate the situation or story. Such as;
I am so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so hungry – and more. Also, sometimes we drag the word longer, in order to exaggerate it.
3. Speaking Thai and Writing Thai are not the same – mostly.
There are many reasons why you should learn Thai with a native speaker and not with books or recorders but one of the most important reason why is because the way we write and speak are not the same. You could still use any books out there to learn Thai or from many clips on Internet these days, but after a long search I’ve found that over 90% of them are not useful for speaking.
You will be able to understand, but you will hardly hear us speak that way – so why waste it in learning those?
4. Thai language is all about culture, emotion and respect.
Now, since I talked about speaking Thai and writing Thai, I cannot miss talking about what our language is based from. If you know a little bit about Thai language, you’d know that we have a polite particles (ka – for girl and krap – for guy) we put in the end of sentences (there are many others ending particles but polite particles are only these two). We will change the way we speak (wordings and sentences structure) depending on who we are talking to or the situations we are in. Casual talk, is one thing, Family talk is another thing and talking to Monk is totally different. But mostly, all of them based on respect you have towards another person.
Once you learn it, you’d be amazed in how many cultures we’ve putting in our language. Personally, I’d say that people who able to learn Thai effectively are people who understand our culture base.
So, learning in class together with other students are the perfect way of learning Thai effectively. I enjoy explaining the class about our cultures and situations a lot. It’s probably one of the best parts about teaching Thai to foreigners. If you’re gonna learn it, I hope people would learn them right. If there’s any questions about Thai language, I’m more than happy to answer and explain to you!
That’s it for now! Bye-ka!
Shaye.
Tips & Tricks in Learning Persian
Im the Iranian Persian teacher at SLS, born in Tehran the capital of Iran and Im happy to be the first one writing on the SLS blog 🙂
Here is some tips about Persian Language:
There are 4 skills in every language
1-Writing
2-Reading
3-Speaking
4-Listening
Try to improve the four skills at the same time…
Why?
Most of the language learners are more interested to improve their speaking skill, but the right way to learn a language is to learn how to communicate with others sufficiently by knowing and using all of the skills when you need.
For instance you may need to write a formal letter to a company or an informal letter to a friend of yours, or simply a short sentence like "I love you" 😉 on a birthday card! Then you need writing skill, besides it helps you pronounce a word or phrase correctly.
You need reading skill when someone writes a letter (or that "I love you") to you. Moreover, you can learn more words and phrases by reading new articles and improve your language more and more. On the other hand, it helps you not forget what you have learnt.
Just imagine you can speak a language very well but you cant understand what others say, funny, innit?! Then you need listening skill as well.
Formal and Informal:
Tell your teacher (whether Im your teacher or someone else) to teach you both formal and informal communication. Sometimes it looks funny if you use a formal word or phrase when you should use the informal one and vice versa.
Farsi Dari, Persian, Farsi OR Parsi?!
Generally I could say that all are the same but you can find more information here
If you have any question about Persian course at SLS just ask me. I`ll be happy to help you find the answer 🙂
Kian
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