The cue card
Describe a teacher who helped you a lot.
You should say:
- who this teacher was
- what subject he or she taught you
- how this teacher helped you
and explain why you still remember this teacher.
You have one minute to make notes, then speak for one to two minutes.
Band 8–9 sample answer
Written by Abroadway as a model of natural, high-band speaking (not an official IELTS sample).
The teacher I'd like to talk about is Mrs D'Souza, who taught me chemistry for three years at a school in Doha, where my family lived while my father was working there as an electrical engineer. I was twelve when we arrived from Dhaka, and she was one of the first teachers I had in an English-medium classroom. Chemistry was the subject, although at first it might as well have been taught in a foreign language, because, for me, it more or less was. My spoken English was fairly basic back then, and words like 'precipitate' and 'titration' completely threw me.
For the whole first term I hardly said a word in class, and my results reflected that. What made the difference was that Mrs D'Souza noticed what was going on instead of assuming I was simply lazy. She gave me a small notebook and asked me to write down every new term with an explanation in my own words, even if it was partly in Bangla, and she checked it every Thursday. She also had me explain each experiment out loud to her after the lesson, which was terrifying at first but did wonders for both my English and my confidence.
By the end of my second year, I was one of the stronger students in the class, and I'd started to genuinely enjoy the subject. I think I remember her so vividly because of the way she handled mistakes. Whenever an experiment went wrong, she'd tell us that a failed result was just information we hadn't understood yet. That idea has stayed with me far beyond chemistry.
And in a fairly direct way, she's the reason I've chosen to study chemical engineering, so in a sense she's shaped the path I'm on now.
Useful phrases from this answer
- completely threw me
- confused me totally
- did wonders for
- improved something a lot
- has stayed with me
- I still remember it and it still affects me
- explain complex ideas in simple terms
- make difficult topics easy to understand
- falling behind
- making less progress than others
- in the foreseeable future
- in the period of time we can reasonably predict
- make ends meet
- earn just enough money to pay for basic needs
- go hand in hand with
- happen together with; be closely connected to
Part 3 follow-up questions and answers
What qualities make a good teacher?
Subject knowledge is obviously essential, but I'd argue it isn't the most important quality. A good teacher needs to be able to explain complex ideas in simple terms and, crucially, to notice when a student hasn't understood, even if that student is too shy to say so. Patience and fairness matter a great deal too, because students quickly lose motivation if they feel a teacher has favourites or gets irritated by questions. Finally, I think enthusiasm is underrated. When a teacher is clearly passionate about their subject, it's contagious, and students who never expected to enjoy something like history or physics can end up loving it.
Is teaching a respected profession in your country?
In principle, yes, very much so. Bangladeshi culture traditionally places teachers just below parents in terms of respect, and many people remember their primary school teachers with real affection. In practice, though, the picture is more mixed. School teachers are not particularly well paid, so the profession doesn't always attract the most ambitious graduates, who may prefer careers in banking or engineering. University teachers, on the other hand, enjoy considerably more prestige. There's also a perception, fair or not, that some teachers focus more on private tuition than on their classroom work, and I think that has damaged the profession's image to some extent.
How has the role of teachers changed since online learning became common?
I'd say teachers have shifted from being the main source of information to being more like guides or coaches. Since students can now watch explanations of almost any topic online, teachers spend less time simply delivering content and more time helping students make sense of it, practise it and apply it. They've also had to become far more comfortable with technology, managing online platforms, recording lessons and keeping students engaged through a screen, which is surprisingly hard. At the same time, online learning has made the caring side of teaching even more important, because teachers need to spot students who are quietly falling behind or feeling isolated.
Could computers ever replace teachers in the classroom?
I don't think they could replace them entirely, at least not in the foreseeable future. Computers are already very good at certain things, such as giving instant feedback on maths exercises or adjusting questions to a student's level, so in that sense they can take over some routine tasks. However, teaching involves far more than transferring information. A good teacher motivates students, manages relationships within a group and notices when a child is upset because of problems at home. Those are deeply human skills. So the more realistic scenario, in my view, is a classroom where technology handles the repetitive work and frees teachers to focus on the personal side.
Should teachers be paid more than they are now? Why or why not?
In most countries, including mine, I'd say yes. Teachers have an enormous impact on a nation's future, since almost every other profession depends on the quality of education people received, yet their salaries are often modest compared with jobs requiring similar qualifications. Better pay would help attract talented graduates into the profession and might reduce the need for teachers to take on extra private tuition just to make ends meet. That said, higher salaries alone won't solve everything. I think any pay rise should go hand in hand with better training and some accountability, so that the extra money genuinely improves what happens in the classroom.
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