Here is what happened at English With An Expert this month…
Where we’ve been
The booster classes at Heritage International School have moved from an idea to a flyer. The course is for Farsi-speaking students aged 13 to 15 who attend schools in the UK. It gives them 20 hours of extra English teaching outside school hours, starting with an assessment of what each student needs and ending with another to measure progress. I am teaching it with a Farsi-speaking colleague based in Turkey. Contact us for more details.
Website news
Five posts went out in September. The one that gained most traction was about invisible mistakes: a student’s essay had lasagnas selling people and “canteen eaters”, and the AI I use as a second check missed both. It reached over 6,000 people and drew 23 comments. Ireland’s proposed English test for citizenship, compared with the UK, Canada, Australia and the US, brought 22 comments. Three shorter pieces followed: why I give students questions rather than answers; whether your paragraphs are written for a phone or an examiner; and how one Taiwanese family became five students with no marketing spend.
Twitter/X
This month’s vocabulary articles: why couples should keep their own identity; describing a garden, from a piece on Ham Court; how twelve Londoners talk about their work and money; what noise-cancelling headphones may do to the brain; the cost of owning a dog; the case for boredom; why some people are always late; how photographs affect memory; and the social risk of giving the wrong present.
Blog
Three new posts: a Speaking vocabulary page on goals and ambitions, with model answers for all three parts and a quiz; a Writing Task 1 model answer for a grouped bar chart on choosing a university; and the September IELTS News Tracker, which opens with the IELTS Voices 2026 survey of what test takers say they want.
Where our students come from
This month most of our students came from…
Taiwan; Hong Kong; mainland China; Colombia.
Student spotlight
Katsu from Japan had been trying for some time to get a 7.0 in Writing. After tuition the result came through: Listening 7.5, Reading 9.0, Writing 7.0, Speaking 7.0, overall 7.5.
In Katsu’s words:
“I received the result tonight and it was; Listening 7.5, Reading 9.0, Writing 7.0, Speaking 7.0, Overall 7.5. I am so happy! Thank you so much for your continuous help! It was a long journey but finally I achieved 7 in the writing. I cannot thank you enough and I appreciate your cooperation so much. Now I can move on to a next step of my life. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
Well done, Katsu. If Writing is the score holding you back, coaching options are here.
When we are available
Lessons run Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 6:30 pm London time. Book through the online system, and book early. The diary fills up.