After more than a decade of teaching English — including six years focused specifically on IELTS preparation — I’ve learned one thing: teaching IELTS is not the same as teaching English.
It sounds strange at first. IELTS is an English test, so shouldn’t teaching English automatically prepare someone for IELTS? In my experience coaching learners here in Batam, Indonesia, the answer is a clear no. The mindset, the materials, the exercises, and most importantly, the goal — everything changes the moment a student says, “Pak Rangga, I need a 6.5 for my scholarship application.”
In this article, I want to share the three biggest differences I’ve discovered between teaching general English and coaching IELTS, based on my own classroom (and online) experience.
1. The Exercises Are Built Around the Test, Not Just the Language
In a general English class, exercises are designed to build communication skills gradually. We practice conversations about daily life, play vocabulary games, write short paragraphs, and slowly move from simple to complex structures. If a student makes a small grammar mistake while telling a story, that’s fine — communication is the goal, and fluency grows with confidence.
IELTS exercises are a completely different animal.
Every exercise I give my IELTS students is mapped to a specific question type in the test. For Reading, that means drilling True/False/Not Given, matching headings, and sentence completion — under strict time pressure. For Listening, students practice catching paraphrased information, because IELTS almost never uses the exact words from the question in the recording. For Writing, we don’t just “write an essay”; we practice Task 1 data description and Task 2 argumentation with the four assessment criteria in mind: Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy.
One habit I always build in my Batam students: timed practice from day one. A student might read beautifully when relaxed, but IELTS Reading gives you 60 minutes for 40 questions across three long passages. Without time-management training, even strong English users panic. So my exercises are not only about “Can you understand this?” but also “Can you find the answer in 90 seconds?”
That’s something general English classes almost never demand.
2. The Learning Materials Are a Different World
For general English, I can be creative and flexible with materials. Songs, movie clips, Instagram captions, everyday dialogues at the mall or the ferry terminal — anything authentic and fun works, because the purpose is real-life communication. Many of my general English materials are even bilingual, with Indonesian explanations to help beginners build a foundation.
IELTS materials, however, must reflect the academic register and format of the actual test. That means:
- Reading passages taken from (or modeled on) academic journals, science magazines, and reports — topics like urban planning, marine biology, or the history of navigation. Not exactly light beach reading in Nongsa!
- Listening materials that mirror the four IELTS sections: everyday transactional conversations, monologues, academic discussions, and university-style lectures — complete with a range of accents (British, Australian, and more), not just American English.
- Writing models that demonstrate band 6, 7, and 8 answers, so students can see the difference between an okay essay and a great one.
- Official and trusted practice tests (Cambridge IELTS series, IDP and British Council resources) rather than random internet worksheets, because question style and difficulty must match the real exam.
In other words, in general English I choose materials that match the student’s life. In IELTS, I choose materials that match the test. One of my biggest jobs as a coach is filtering out low-quality “IELTS-style” materials floating around online that actually mislead students.
3. Everything Is Driven by a Target Band Score
This, for me, is the deepest difference of all.
In general English, progress is open-ended. A student improves month by month, and success is measured by confidence: they can finally handle a job interview, chat with foreign customers, or watch a series without subtitles. There is no deadline and no fixed finish line.
IELTS students walk in with a number and a deadline: “I need Band 7.0 by November for my visa,” or “My campus requires 6.5, no sub-score below 6.0.” That single fact changes my entire approach as a coach:
First, I diagnose before I teach. Every IELTS student starts with a full mock test so I know their current band. If a student is at 5.5 and needs 6.5 in three months, I can design a realistic plan. If they need 7.5 in three weeks, I have to be honest with them about what’s achievable — honesty is part of coaching.
Second, I teach to the band descriptors. IELTS examiners score against public criteria. So when I correct a Writing Task 2 essay, I don’t just fix grammar; I tell the student, “This paragraph lacks a clear central topic — that’s what’s holding your Coherence and Cohesion at band 6.” Feedback becomes surgical, tied directly to what moves the score.
Third, strategy matters as much as English. A student aiming for 6.5 doesn’t need to understand every word in a Reading passage — they need to know which questions to answer first, when to skip, and how to guess intelligently. Sometimes I spend a whole session purely on test strategy without “teaching English” at all. That would be unthinkable in a general English class.
The result is that IELTS coaching feels less like a language class and more like training an athlete for a specific competition. There’s a scoreboard, a competition date, and a game plan.
So, Which One Is Harder to Teach?
Honestly? Neither is harder — they’re just different sports.
General English teaching rewards creativity, patience, and the ability to make language fun and relevant to daily life in Indonesia. IELTS coaching rewards precision, test expertise, time discipline, and brutal honesty about a student’s current level versus their target.
The mistake I often see is when learners (or even tutors) assume the two are interchangeable — that a few months of conversation class will automatically produce a Band 7, or that IELTS drilling alone will make someone a confident English speaker. Six years of IELTS coaching in Batam has taught me that the best results come when we respect the difference: build the language foundation with general English, then switch to focused, target-driven IELTS training when the goal becomes a band score.
If you’re in Batam (or anywhere in Indonesia) and preparing for IELTS, my advice is simple: know your current band, know your target band, and train specifically for the gap between them. That’s what an IELTS coach is for.
Rangga is an English educator and IELTS coach based in Batam, Indonesia, with 10 years of teaching experience — including 6 years specializing in IELTS preparation. Find more learning resources at englishwithrangga.com.
