Best Books to Study for IELTS

For IELTS preparation, the most important thing is the student-teacher relationship. To succeed, students need help developing their underlying language level and they need to be shown how to do the test so that their English level is reflected in their score. They need guidance on how to do learn efficiently and finally they need practice tests to assess learning and progress. As having great materials is essential to the process, we’re always looking out for the best books for IELTS preparation, and we think this means four things: language development, test skills development, learning strategies and exam practice.

So, IH Manchester is delighted to announce a new book for our group and 1:1 IELTS students, Mindset for IELTS from Cambridge University Press. All of our students will get a book, including audio, and access to online modules and practice tests

It’s a 4 level course, Foundation for students who are new to IELTS and A.2 and above, Level 1 for students with a target of 5.5, Level 2 for students with a target of 6.5 band and Level 3 for students with a target of 7.5. There are 8 units in each of the books, the units are topic based and there’s a section on each of the skills, listening, reading, speaking and writing, in each of the units, with over 150 targeted support items per level to help students maximise test performance.

Something we really like is that the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary is integrated into the book. Students should always be using learner’s dictionaries as opposed to standard dictionaries because these give you great advice on grammar, phrase level vocabulary and pronunciation as well as the definitions.

In addition to the book, students get access to online modules with extra practise activities for every unit. Our teachers will be giving these as extra practice in class and as homework and also assigning them as extra self-study. And there are 4 practise tests written by Cambridge for students to complete during their course. Another nice feature of the series is that there are fantastic language specific modules included as well, for example, spelling for Arabic speakers or extra speaking for speakers of Chinese. These are areas which people from these language backgrounds have said they’d like a bit of extra help with and Mindset for IELTS provides that.

So all in all, a really complete package for serious IELTS students that’ll be a great help for our teachers and students working together to achieve results.