Irina Lutsenko: IELTS, writing, cohesion

Rise and fall 📈📉 One of my favorite YouTube channels to listen to while I'm cooking or warming up before a run is "Rise and fall" by Michael Girdley. And it's not just fascinating business stories. The videos contain a lot of #IELTS Writing Task 1 language too. The pattern "a whopping N%" is in every other video. And the business stories -- you can use them as a source of ideas or examples in IELTS Writing Task 2. Here are a couple of my favorites: 1️⃣ The story of the rise and fall of Nike https://youtu.be/SrsUlTtLLIM?is=UWVAYkCipUEq5Yu5 2️⃣ The story of the rise and fall of Craigslist https://youtu.be/31oqfd8myBI?is=XBxJlAySVB2qeA0N @iraluts

🍁 Fall 2026 groups and courses 🍁 Writing: 1. IELTS Writing A long, thorough, meticulous, confidence-boosting skill-building course. 📅 Two new groups 7.5+ - Tuesday 11:00-12:30 Moscow time - Tuesday 13:00-14:30 Moscow time 📅 Two groups for old students - Thursday 10:00-11:30 Moscow time - Thursday 12:00-13:30 Moscow time 📅 Groups for 6.5/7 - Saturday 11:30-13:00 Moscow time (can be changed slightly) More: https://m.vk.com/product-47977221_3696544 2. Writing with New Scientist A writing course based on articles from the "New Scientist" magazine and geared towards exam writing -- IELTS or C2 Proficiency (two different tracks). A perfect pre- or post-exam course! 📅 Levels C1+/C2 - Old group, IELTS track: Wednesday 11:00-12:30 Moscow time - New group, C2 Proficiency track: Wednesday 13:00-14:30 Moscow time - New group, IELTS track: Friday 11:00-12:30 Moscow time 📅 Level C1, new groups - Thursday 11:00-12:30 Moscow time - Friday 13:00-14:30 Moscow time More: https://m.vk.com/product-47977221_5061302 🍁 Speaking: 1. "Speaking with New Scientist" A speaking course based on articles from the "New Scientist" magazine and geared towards some exam tasks but also good for those who have a penchant for deep, meaningful discussions. Very rich in lexis. 📅 Level C3 - Thursday, 14:00-15:30 Moscow time 📅 Levels C1+/C2 - Do you need a group? Drop me a line. More: https://m.vk.com/product-47977221_5911089 2. "You Be The Judge: Debating with The Guardian" A debate club based on dilemmas posed by The Guardian readers. A great boost to your speaking and argumentation skills! Rich in more casual lexis. No homework! 📅 Levels C1/C1+ - Tuesday 11:00-12:30 Moscow time - Friday 11:00-12:30 Moscow time More: https://m.vk.com/product-47977221_10315848 🍁 My secret C2 group We do everything: speaking with New Scientist, writing with New Scientist, C2 Proficiency writing, creative writing, text analysis, stylistic devices, You Be The Judge dilemmas, stand-up comedy, chinwagging, roasting Irina... . We are a cozy old group -- we do whatever we want. 📅 Friday 16:00-17:30 Moscow time 🍁 One-to-one: Available for IELTS below 7.5, TOEFL, Duolingo English Test, and unusual or unique needs. 💌 How to sign up My thorough and arguably annoying enrollment process: https://t.me/irinalutsenko/740 When you message me, it's a good idea to answer the first two points. 💌 @iraluts

Unleash your inner poet—join our poetry writing mini-course this August! 🦋 Poetry can be about anything, but this August we'll write about self, nature and poetry itself.   Don't worry if you have never penned a poem yet—there will be plenty of helpful prompts to help you create your gems!  This mini-course is for you if you want to: - write and read some beautiful poems; - spend Sunday afternoons with a bunch of creative people; - have fun! 📅 Summer 2026: - Sunday, 9, 16, 23 August, 11:00 am Moscow time - All three sessions are different. You can join all three or just one, any one.  🦋 Your host is the wonderful, positive, supportive, #creative Veronika Shirobokova. 💌 The project is free. To join, message me @iraluts with a creative ending to this sentence: "A good poem is like ... ."

New groups will be starting in September, but some people are already messaging me to sign up. I first thought, "I'm on vacation. No signing up, no no no." But then I thought, "Why not?" I have a long placement process after all. We can save some time now, while I'm on vacation. So... The enrollment process looks like this: 1️⃣ If your profile name is a nickname or an alias, please introduce yourself with your name and last name. My name is Irina Lutsenko - I want to know yours. Nameless subscribers and people with nicknames or aliases won't be considered. 2️⃣ Tell me about yourself in 100 words or less. Answer all or some of these questions as needed: What course do you want to join? Why? What are your goals and course expectations? What is your experience of learning English? What is your experience of writing? Have you taken any exams? What were you scores? 3️⃣ If you want to enroll in a writing course, I'll give you a placement writing task. 4️⃣ We'll schedule an interview. If you already know what group you want to join, let's do steps 1-3 now and schedule interviews for after my vacation (week 17--22 August). 📅 And then we'll be all set to rock and roll in September. 🍁 The courses and schedules are available here: https://m.vk.ru/market-47977221 (Sorry, it's VK again. If you don't have VK, just ask me, but please please please write your first message with information from points 1 and 2 above.) 💌 @iraluts

My #Creative Writing Club has come to its inevitable end 🦋 I love love love this project because we write what we want -- for self-expression. For example, ... I'll share a story I wrote. I am rarely satisfied with my creative work, but I really like this story. "The blazing sun is hoisting up out of the sea a piercing stare that doesn’t burn. It scours the seascape and stumbles on a small rowboat gently rocking on waves. Small waves gently lap against the boat. The oars are submerged into water on both sides, like arms of a desolate, disconsolate old man. The oarlocks creak quietly in tune with the waves. Moist, squishy eelgrass blades are twining around the right oar, clinging to it, as if they were the hands of a witch trying to drag it to her dark underworld. Seagulls are squawking and squealing. One large seagull is screeching. It is flying alone around the boat: it alights on the side, then ascends again, then makes a circle around and screeches, screeches, screeches. Inside the boat is another seagull. It sits on the floor. It doesn’t have feathers in places. The bald patches of the body, desolately, disconsolately gray, ooze puss and stench. Its eyes are covered with a semi-transparent patina that looks like egg white. One webbed foot is sticking out at a crooked angle, as if it fell off and a passer-by picked it up and placed it nearby so that it doesn’t get lost. The seagull blinks occasionally, oblivious to the screeching around it. The blazing sun is hoisting up out of the sea a piercing stare. It doesn’t burn, it doesn’t heal. It doesn’t judge, it doesn’t soothe. It doesn’t frown, it doesn’t cry. It watches in silence." (By Irina Lutsenko @iraluts) The image, like all creative images on the channel, is by Anna Skopina. And I'll ask the participants to share their stories or impressions about my Creative Writing Club in the comments. ⬇️

Dynamic Writing: how to break a wall of text Again, let's look at examples. Which paragraph sounds more dynamic and engaging? 1️⃣ On day eight, I wake up at 5.04 am without an alarm because the morning beckons. However, I do not bound out of bed to seize the day.  2️⃣ On day eight, I wake up at 5.04 am without an alarm. The morning beckons. Do I bound out of bed to seize the day? I do not.  Both texts communicate the exact same meaning. But the first text is just too straightforward -- it simply communicates facts. The second text, however, engages the reader with such things as: shorter sentences, an elliptical sentence, a question and an answer. To practice these simple techniques that will make your text more dynamic, join my workshop or my mini-course. 1️⃣ My workshop "Dynamic Writing: How to break a wall of text"  Tuesday, 28 July, 11:00 Moscow time  More: https://t.me/irinalutsenko/731 2️⃣ My mini-course "Writing with The Guardian" - Tuesday 10-11:30 Moscow time - Thursday 12-13:30 Moscow time  More: https://t.me/irinalutsenko/715 💌 @iraluts

#IELTS with Irina be like ... Two groups have recently finished their 10-month IELTS writing courses. One group's google doc is 307 pages, and the other's 317 pages. (Plus, every student has their individual Google doc.) That's 300+ pages of exercises, materials, comments, my sample answers. And that's just my introductory course. I also have secret IELTS writing groups, which are open only for my old students. (One person from such a group got IELTS writing 9! ⭐️) If you have a VK account, you can read student testimonials here. New IELTS groups will be starting in September. 🍁 In the meantime, here is where you can read my IELTS Writing answers: 1️⃣ On this channel: #Irina_writes_IELTS 2️⃣ In this pdf collection: https://t.me/irinalutsenko/551 3️⃣ Behind the paywall (200+ answers, regular donations and one-time downloads): https://boosty.to/irinalutsenko 💌 @iraluts

On making your text move dynamically Compare these two texts, identical in almost everything except ... Which moves faster? Which is easier to read? One is an excerpt from an article in "The Guardian." Another is my downgraded rewrite. 1. It is 5.15am and I am walking down my street, feeling smug. The buildings are bathed in peachy dawn light. “Win the morning and you win the day,” suggests productivity guru Tim Ferriss. The prize is within my sights: an oat-milk latte, my reward for getting up ridiculously early. The trains have not started running yet and the silence seems to magnify hitherto inaudible sounds. There is a mysterious squawk of gulls. I live in Camden, north-west London, many miles from the seaside. I have certainly never heard them here before. 2. It is 5.15 am and I am walking down my street, feeling smug. The buildings are bathed in peachy dawn light. Productivity guru Tim Ferriss suggests that if you win the morning, you win the day. The prize, which is my reward for getting up ridiculously early, is an oat-milk latte, and it is within my sights. The trains have not started running yet and the silence seems to magnify hitherto inaudible sounds. There is a mysterious squawk of gulls, which I have never heard before as I live in Camden, north-west London, many miles from the seaside. The first text is the original. The second text is a representation of what I call "a wall of text" -- no paragraphs and very long sentences with no interruptions. The interruptions -- paragraphs, direct speech, dashes, to name a few -- stop the reader's mind from wandering. They make the text more dynamic and readable. To try your hand at these and other tools of making your text more dynamic, you can join: 1️⃣ My workshop "Dynamic Writing: How to break a wall of text" https://t.me/irinalutsenko/731 2️⃣ My mini-course "Writing with The Guardian" https://t.me/irinalutsenko/715 These are my pet projects I only run in summer. Because the rest of the year is reserved for IELTS -- and you can't have these kinds of fun in IELTS. 💌 @iraluts

Dynamic writing: how to break a wall of text  No one wants to read a wall of text -- and you don't want to write one. What do I mean by a wall of text? A paragraphless, punctuationless wall of sentences that the eye cannot break into manageable chunks. To learn to make your texts more dynamic and engaging with the help of structural tools, join this practical workshop.  📝 Tools: - Paragraphing  - Punctuation to enhance meaning: colons, brackets, dashes, ellipsis - Varying sentence length, structures, and types  - Visual tools: all caps, italics, bold 📝 Great for: - blogging - copywriting - non-fiction and creative non-fiction - CPE / CAE articles and reviews 📝 This is a practical workshop. You will be expected to participate on google docs -- to work with my texts and write your own. It's best to join with your camera on and from a good work station. Duration: 90-105 minutes (depending on the number of the participants)  Price: 2500 RUB  Schedule: Tuesday, 28 July, 11:00 Moscow time Important: You will get the materials, but there will be no video recording. I don't record my workshops because I believe this ensures a safe space for everyone to participate openly, without the fear of making mistakes, asking questions, and just being themselves. 💌💌💌 @iraluts

IELTS 21. Quiz below ⬇️

#Duolingo English Test Writing: picture description task 🏝 What makes a good picture description in #DET? Here is an example by our DET instructor Mariia Botina (DET 160 out of 160!): "I see a picture of a beach during low tide, with boats stranded on the shore. It doesn’t seem like it’s a very well-kept beach, judging by its size and wild grass and trees around. The water has a magnificent color with foaming cyan waves hitting the shore. This may well be off the beaten track and only used by locals. " Here are some things that are expected from a high-level response and why mine was just that: 1. Advanced descriptive words, not just obvious adjectives. I used "stranded, wild, off the beaten track." This is advanced vocabulary that fits the context, not just fancy words. 2. Participle clauses to connect ideas, e.g. "judging by." Here I killed two birds with one stone - both speculation and a clause. 3. Speculative language: "may well be, doesn’t seem like." 4. Appropriate sentence length and answer length. A good answer is between 30-50 words. Mine is 52. It uses different sentence structures, which we see in my answer. So, on the one hand, the answer looks quite simple. But on the other, there is some great language there! This summer, we are running a workshop on teaching writing for Duolingo English Test. The workshop will cover: - Types of writing tasks and time constraints for each one - Assessment criteria - Ways to approach each task - Types of questions that you’re likely to encounter during the exam - The necessary language for each type Instructor: Mariia Botina, DET 160 out of 160 Price: 2500 RUB Schedule: Friday, 17 July, 11:00 Moscow time Place: in real time on Zoom, some participation is expected 💌 Sign up: @iraluts

How to launch 6 projects and maintain sanity I was recently launching six projects at the same time (note to self -- bad idea): 1. IELTS Writing Task 1 Overviews Sprint: 32 people joined 2. IELTS Writing Task 1 Overviews workshop: under 10 people 3. Duolingo Writing Sprint: 12 people joined 4. Creative Writing Club: 23 people joined 5. Creatie Writing Bootcamp: under 10 people 6. Writing with The Guardian: under 10 people That's a lot of people, a lot of messaging, and a lot of admin. When I launch many projects at the same time, I get tens and tens of messages a day. Some of them I don't reply to -- guilty as charged. I don't reply to poorly written messages because I just don't have the bandwidth (sorry not sorry). And that's how I maintain my sanity. It's a good idea to write very clear messages, following this formula, for example: "Hi Irina, my name is [Name Last name]. I would like to join [word-for-word name of project]. Here is my [the thing requested in the post.]" This simple formula will stand you in good stead in many situations. It communicates what you want clearly and concisely -- you can't go wrong with that. 💜

#IELTS Writing Task 1: passenger-kilometers This came up in my recent overviews sprint. I was writing an overview for this task, when my curious brain suddenly said, "Hm, Irina, what exactly is passenger-kilometers? Let's research this word." The terms measures the total volume of passenger travel by multiplying the number of passengers by the distance they traveled. For example: - If 1 person travels 20 km, they contribute 20 passenger-kilometers (1 × 20). - If 4 people travel together for 20 km, they contribute 80 passenger-kilometers (4 × 20). Why does it matter? One word: lexis. ❌ First and foremost, you cannot use the word "distance" in this task. ✅ Here are some alternatives: - Passenger volume - Transport activity - Transport performance - Total passenger movement Disclaimer: The alternatives were suggested by Gemini. ❗️ In this task, understanding the concept "passenger-kilometers" is super-important for correct paraphrasing. I hope this post helps. Try your hand at the overview for the attached task in the comments, making sure to use the right alternatives for "passenger-kilometers" -- and stay tuned for the next overviews sprint! (More about the sprint: https://t.me/irinalutsenko/714)