My name is Christopher Pell and I made IELTSAdvantage.com for my students so that they would have a better understanding of the IELTS test and be able to study at home for free.
My IELTS career started in the middle of a crisis. The global financial crisis of 2007-2008, to be exact. I was working for a commercial law firm as a young solicitor and I knew my days were numbered when clients started calling to ask how they could get their money out of their bank before it collapsed. It was obvious that I wasn’t going to have a job for long so I decided to go travelling.
Germany was my first stop and I was asked to teach English the very first day I was there. It was a huge change from being a lawyer, but I enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere and getting paid to have fun for a change.
I returned to Ireland to get my teaching qualification and taught students from all over the planet. Belfast was emerging from decades of conflict at the time and it was amazing to see students travelling from the other side of the world to learn English in our city.
Before too long I decided that Asia would be a great place to visit and I landed in Vietnam. I only planned to stay there for a year or two, but I met my lovely wife and we quickly had a little boy and got married.
In Ho Chi Minh City I worked at International House and the British Council. When I first started there I had no interest in teaching IELTS. One day the IELTS teacher was sick and I had to teach his class. It became clear that this was an area I should specialise in; the students were so motivated and a good teacher could really change their life by helping them get the scores they needed.
There was one big problem- the materials and books the students were using didn’t tell them exactly what they needed to do. My goal was to teach my students exactly what to give the examiners and nothing else. I started to research IELTS every spare minute I had and I developed my own materials. The result was that my students started to get higher and higher scores. It was a great feeling to help students gain access to the university or job of their dreams.
I then decided to create this website to share my ideas and materials with the whole world. The website quickly gained popularity and I was able to interact with and help people from all over the world. By then I was designing IELTS courses for the British Council and training their teachers how to be more effective IELTS teachers.
I now work on the website full time and teach from my hometown in Ireland.
The aim of this website is to help IELTS students prepare for the exam. The materials are all free and will be updated daily. The materials include hints and tips, full lessons and sample answers.
We also have a premium essay correction service for those that need expert advice and I also have an online course. If you would like more information, please join my mailing list and I’ll let you know when the online course opens again.
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