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Sep 9, 2026

Exam Results Are Partly About Handling People

A teacher may not warm to you. You deal with them for a year or two; the grade stays with you for life. Learning to manage that is a skill in itself.

Sep 8, 2026

How I Came Top of an Accounting Course Knowing Nothing About Accounting

I did not know what a payable was. Two and a half years later I was top of the year and tutoring classmates. The method was not complicated.

Sep 8, 2026

My First Good Degree, at Master's Level

An ordinary secondary school, a merit. An expensive private university, another merit. Then a distinction, and top of the department. It cost a great deal.

Sep 7, 2026

Answer It Yourself Before You Listen to the Model

Going straight to the sample answer feels efficient and teaches you little. Record your own attempt first, then compare the two transcripts side by side.

Sep 7, 2026

The Explain Section Does Not Have to Be the Longest

Everyone assumes the first points are short and the explanation is long. Look at a real high-scoring answer and that is simply not what happens.

Sep 6, 2026

A Lesson Covers Seven Questions, the Paper Has Twenty

The teacher works through the representative ones and sets the rest. The other thirteen are not optional extras, they are the actual work.

Sep 6, 2026

Teaching Something Is Learning It a Second Time

Studying at 4am so that by 9am class is a discussion rather than a first encounter. By evening revision you have met the material three times, not once.

Sep 5, 2026

Part 2 Is About You, Part 3 Is About Everyone

A Part 2 answer that works can still sink Part 3, because candidates keep answering about themselves when the question has widened out.

Sep 5, 2026

You Would Never Expect This of Your Business

At work you invest money, time and thought, and you ask around for years. With English people expect a magic method, try it briefly, and drop it.

Sep 4, 2026

Drop "I'm Going to Talk About" and Your Opening Changes Completely

Every examiner hears that phrase all day. Open with a recent change or something you realised instead, and lead from there into the question.

Sep 4, 2026

Nobody Is Thinking About Your English As Much As You Are

Imagine a foreigner stops you in broken Vietnamese while you are collecting your child from school. Two hours later, are you still thinking about their grammar?

Sep 3, 2026

The Words Are Easy, the Pairings Are the Skill

Extended, practice, manage, consistent. Nothing advanced. What makes a band 7 answer is "stay consistent" and "a noticeable benefit", not rarer vocabulary.

Sep 3, 2026

Treat Every Question in Class as the Examiner Asking

Asked where you are from, most people answer and stop. You paid for that hour with a real human. Speaking is the one skill you cannot practise alone.

Sep 2, 2026

What Band 5.5 Actually Buys You Abroad

Reading a letter from the council. Appealing a parking fine you did not deserve. This is what the band descriptors are really describing, and why the number matters.

Aug 31, 2026

How to Spot AI-Written English (and Why It Matters When You Read)

Choppy short sentences, semicolons where nobody uses them, dashes everywhere. Knowing the tells tells you something about what you are reading, and why it exists.

Aug 29, 2026

Worrying About Your Own Grammar Is the Wrong Way Round

When you speak or write, the purpose is for the other person to receive your meaning. So why is all your attention on yourself?

Aug 29, 2026

Two Communities Living Side by Side Without Knowing Each Other

If we do not talk to them, they cannot understand us, and we cannot understand them. Over time that gap between neighbours does not stay neutral.

Aug 28, 2026

English Says "Self-Taught", Not "Self-Learned"

Not everyone who is good at something knows how to teach it. If you know how to learn, you can take what you need from anyone, just by watching and asking.

Aug 27, 2026

Two Hours of Speaking a Month Will Never Be Enough

Nobody passes a driving test on theory and two hours at the wheel. Fifteen minutes of real speaking, twice a week, is two hours a month. Do the arithmetic.

Aug 27, 2026

They Are Too Different From Us: The Belief That Does the Damage

Have you actually tried? Opened up about family, about love, the way you would with a Vietnamese friend? The assumption blocks the friendship before it starts.

Aug 26, 2026

Ten Years in an English Office and Still Lonely

If your job is moving numbers from one column to another, the English you use is "have you done it" and "I'll do it tomorrow", recycled for a decade.

Aug 4, 2026

Forgetting curve: học nhanh hơn, lâu quên hơn

Thi chia sẻ cách dùng forgetting curve và quy tắc 1-2-4-7 để học nhanh hơn, lâu quên hơn và bớt tốn công học lại.

Jul 26, 2026

Forty Minutes a Day Beats Five Hours on Sunday

Nobody learns to drive by sitting in a car for five hours once a week and not touching the wheel again. Language is a reflex, and reflexes need short, regular repetition.

Jul 24, 2026

Why I Cap Classes at Eight

Thirty people sitting quietly while the teacher talks go home with the same stiff mouth they arrived with. Eight people all get to speak.