Problem:

Over the last few weeks I’ve been having some problems with access to my blog. It seems that my website provider has made some changes that mean my blog address only works when you put ‘www.’ in front of it.

Previously I’ve always used ielts-simon.com without the ‘www.’ and many of my old links are now broken as a result.

Solution:

We’re gradually fixing pages and links within the blog, but this is the short-term solution.

My long-term solution is to move all of my old blog lessons to a new website that I’m building. This will be my own site, rather than one that sits on a blog platform.

I’ve mentioned the new website to subscribers before, and I wanted to have it ready at the beginning of this year. However, I didn’t realise how much work is involved in creating a new site, and now the job has become even bigger because I am moving my blog lessons over there too.

My plans

Over the coming weeks and months, I’m mostly going to be working on my new site. There are over 3000 free and paid lessons to organise and index, so it’s a big job.

As a result, I won’t be publishing any new lessons on my blog or on the member site.

If you’re a subscriber to the member site, you can still use the lessons and post comments, and I’ll still answer all comments. But feel free to unsubscribe at any point, especially if you’re not using the member lessons.

My mission has always been to create the best IELTS lessons that I can. I think the new site will be worth the wait, so I hope you’ll join me there when it’s ready.

Speak soon

Simon

I’ve just written a blog post about 3 levels of IELTS essay writing here.

If you’ve followed the ‘online classroom’ lessons on my member site, you will recognise the sentence-level approach that I describe in level 3. This, I think, is the secret to the efficient* writing style that I teach.

*By using the word ‘efficient’, I’m trying to describe a writing style that is concise and coherent, but that also contains enough detail and depth.

If you’re a subscriber, feel free to discuss the ‘3 levels’ idea with me in the comments area on the member site.

Several people have asked me about my IELTS teaching plans for this year, so here’s a quick update.

Reorganising my IELTS materials

My main aim for 2021 is to reorganise some of my teaching materials so that they are easier for students to use.

There are thousands of lessons on my blog, on my member site, and in files on my computer, and I want to bring these together and index them properly.

I’ll do this in two main ways:

1. By creating more ebooks (e.g. collections of essays, reading exercises, tips etc).

2. By making audio recordings of my best resources (e.g. recordings of sample answers for writing and speaking).

I’m also having a new website made so that I can present my ebooks, audio recordings and video lessons more easily.

However, you won’t need to wait for the new site. I’ll publish my new resources through my blog until the new site is ready.

Weekly blog post

While I work on the things mentioned above, I will publish a lesson every Monday on my original blog (ielts-simon.com). For example, I published this lesson yesterday.

I’ll let you know!

As soon as I have finished my next ebook or audio recording, I’ll let you know by email and through my blog.

Some of these new resources will be free, and others will be very cheap if you look out for the discount codes that I send out by email.

Thanks for following my lessons, and I hope that my IELTS resources can help you this year.

Best wishes

Simon