If you do not have anyone with whom you can practice spoken English for the IELTS exam, you can still improve your band score. Your computer and microphone are effective tools to use to help you get the score you need to enroll in your English-speaking university of choice.

Choose a set of sample task questions you would like to address from the many that are available online. Select a topic about which you feel comfortable speaking at first. The more times you practice this technique, the better you should feel about tackling more difficult question sets.

Next, record yourself asking the questions and then answering them. Use the sound recorder tool on your computer or on your smartphone. You might also use an old-school tape recorder. The camera feature on your phone or computer would also work. You don’t have to use the camera; just get the audio. Later on, if you are concerned that you appear nervous, use the camera to record video of yourself answering the questions as if you are in a live interview.

Then listen to your recordings. This can be embarrassing and painful for some students. It’s all right. You are doing this to help yourself speak better. So go ahead and hit the play button. Listen through it one time without taking any notes down on paper. After that, write down the specific errors you hear. You might write down that you pronounced a word incorrectly, or that you used the wrong verb tense. Listen for vocabulary, organization, pronunciation, and grammar errors. You might listen through five times: once for a quick listen first, then one for each of these domains.

You can also upload your recording so that other IELTS students can comment on your recording. You can also listen to theirs and help them improve. The IELTS Network is one such online meeting place for students. I sometimes post there, offering some feedback on students’ recordings. You may also find another student with whom to practice on Skype! I am also happy to be your online English tutor to help you improve even more.

Introduction

Teachers are prepared by their own experiences as young students and through their college careers to decorate their classrooms. This seems especially important for kindergarten teachers. They often represent their students’ formal introduction to school, and they want their rooms to be colorful and welcoming. Teachers spend a lot of money and time purchasing posters and borders, laminating them, and hanging it all up. In the end, however, a classroom focused on children’s original work and specific learning displays with less-cluttered walls is likely to help them learn better than a traditionally-decorated traditionally decorated classroom.

Decoration Research

Teachers generally enjoy decorating their rooms and putting up posters that they believe will encourage their student's learning. However, Kaye Burnet of the Pittsburgh National Public Radio station WESA reported in June 2014 about a recent study by Carnegie Mellon University that demonstrates that young students learn more in uncluttered classrooms. The study measured the retention of six science lessons presented to 24 kindergarten students by testing them about what they learned before and after the lessons. Students in the bare classroom got 55 percent of the questions correct compared to 45 percent in the more-decorated classroom. Students in the more-decorated room also spent 38.6 percent of their time off-task, but just 28.4 percent were off-task in the sparser classroom. Associate professor of psychology at CMU Anna Fisher, the study’s lead author, does not recommend taking everything off your walls. Instead, consider that your decorations can stimulate as well as distract kindergarten students.

Children's Work

Create a large designated space for students’ original work to hang. This creates a sense of pride in completion and accomplishment. You might also hang up dictated stories or stories students write out, complete with incorrect and inventive spelling. Hang up a piece of laminated construction paper with paperclips at the top for each student you have so you can quickly change out writing and art projects without using staples. Mrs. Kilburn's Kiddos', a second grade second-grade teacher's blog, offers the idea of creating "clipboards" by cutting "black poster board in 1/2 to make it look like a clip board. She "super glued tacks to clothespins and then covered them with washi tape" to create a writing display wall for her classroom. This idea is adaptable to a kindergarten room.

Montessori Minimalism

Montessori teachers have many fewer posters and decorations on the walls. What little art is up is student-created. You are not likely to find bright colors or cartoon characters. The colors are soft and neutral, and teachers also decorate with natural lighting. Plants may be present in the room to encourage students to care for another living thing. The goal of decoration is to promote concentration and peace. If you opt for this type of room decoration, put up pictures of art and children from around the world, a world map, museum posters or landscapes.

Reference Posters and Themes

Select the most essential learning posters or decorations for your classroom, and tie them in with a theme. Some teachers choose a particular animal or landscape as their classroom theme. Most decorations follow the same color scheme and include the same elements.  For example, in a classroom with a giraffe theme, the wall calendar, number line and alphabet may be printed with a few giraffes on them. Avoid too many inspirational posters or quotations, and reduce the visual stimulation your children receive to help them concentrate on their lessons. Key reference posters should be easy to find when students need help with their work, and they shouldn't have to vie for attention from another poster or bulletin board with less relevant material. Create anchor charts in no more than two colors with your students instead of purchasing them from a store, and change them out as students master the lessons on each poster.

References

• American Montessori Society: Montessori Classrooms

• Education.com: Top 10 Signs of a Good Kindergarten Classroom
  
• 90.5 WESA: Study Shows Classroom Decor Can Distract From Learning
  
• Mrs. Kilburn's Kiddos: A Peek into My Class
  
• School Girl Style: Classroom Decorating Trends for 2012
  
• Choice Literacy: A Closer Look at Anchor Charts
  
• Scholastic: Anchor Charts as an Effective Teacher/Student Tool

Resources (Further Reading)

• Kinder-Craze Blog
  
• My Classroom Ideas: Kindergarten Bulletin Boards and Classroom Ideas
  
  

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As an English as a second language teacher in a public school, I learned quickly that it could be difficult to get my parents engaged. I had to relearn what engagement means, however, and consider the culture from which my parents come.