IELTS Simon’s Online Classroom | Substack

Welcome!

All of the lessons on this site have been written by Simon Corcoran, ex-IELTS examiner and creator of the blog ielts-simon.com. The aim of this site is to provide deeper, more detailed IELTS lessons than those on my blog.

Site contents

This site contains the following types of lesson. Links to lessons are further down this page.

• Online IELTS classroom: daily lessons with homework tasks

• Daily challenge flashcards: a quick daily IELTS challenge

• Daily challenge sample answers: my suggested answers for each flashcard

• IELTS Q&A: a weekly audio recording of my answers to students’ questions

• Best of IELTS Simon: a weekly lesson taken from my blog archives

• Ideas for IELTS Topics: audio recordings of my ebook chapters

• Band descriptors course: lessons explaining the IELTS scoring system

Index links

Click on the appropriate link below to go straight to a particular lesson.

Online IELTS classroom lessons

Unit 1: A series of lessons about a writing task 2 topic (teaching facts vs skills). You should follow these lessons in order.

Lesson 1.1
Lesson 1.2
Lesson 1.3
Lesson 1.4
Lesson 1.5
Lesson 1.6

Unit 2: Writing task 1, academic (a table of residents’ opinions about a city) and general (letter to a cookery course director). Follow these lessons in order.

Lesson 2.1
Lesson 2.2
Lesson 2.3
Lesson 2.4
Lesson 2.5
Lesson 2.6

Unit 3: Three important writing themes: having a method, extending ideas, improving vocabulary.

Lesson 3.0
Lesson 3.1
Lesson 3.2
Lesson 3.3

Unit 4: Writing task 2 topic (first impressions in job interviews).

Lesson 4.1
Lesson 4.2
Lesson 4.3
Lesson 4.4
Lesson 4.5
Lesson 4.6
Lesson 4.7
Lesson 4.8

Unit 5: Writing task 1 academic (process diagram) and general (letter to a singer).

Lesson 5.1
Lesson 5.2
Lesson 5.3
Lesson 5.4
Lesson 5.5
Lesson 5.6
Lesson 5.7

Unit 6: One-idea paragraphs. New writing task 2 topic about music and arts.

Lesson 6.1
Lesson 6.2
Lesson 6.3
Lesson 6.4
Lesson 6.5
Lesson 6.6
Lesson 6.7
Lesson 6.8
Lesson 6.9
Lesson 6.10

Unit 7: A series of lessons about writing skills: Becoming an advanced user, writing to improve speaking, the importance of paraphrasing, how reading affects writing, clear thinking and clear communication.

Lesson 7.0
Lesson 7.1
Lesson 7.2
Lesson 7.3
Lesson 7.4

Unit 8: Reading practice and summary writing.

Lesson 8.1
Lesson 8.2
Lesson 8.3
Lesson 8.4
Lesson 8.5

Unit 9: Analysing and improving a band 6.5 essay.

Lesson 9.1
Lesson 9.2
Lesson 9.3
Lesson 9.4
Lesson 9.5
Lesson 9.6
Lesson 9.7
Lesson 9.8
Lesson 9.9

Unit 10: Writing task 1 academic: how to describe a bar chart.

Lesson 10.1
Lesson 10.2
Lesson 10.3
Lesson 10.4
Lesson 10.5
Lesson 10.6

Writing task 1 general: job application letter.

Lesson 10.7
Lesson 10.8
Lesson 10.9
Lesson 10.10