序言

When my good friend Mr Cao Wei first proposed writing a book together I couldn't agree quickly enough. Writing a book is never an easy task,especially one for the crowded IELTS market,but I had reason to be confident. In more than 5 years of teaching English in China,without question the most effective classes I have taught have been those alongside Mr Cao. With his vast experience,intimate knowledge of students' needs and comprehensive understanding of IELTS，students would always be in good hands. However,when combined with the eye for detail that I bring as a native speaker,it really made for a strong combination. Our “double-act” has been the highlight of my teaching career in China,and it was extremely rewarding to witness the progress that students made.

This book in many ways is a reproduction of that winning formula. I deploy my native-level writing skills to create essays of a high standard,while Mr Cao provides professional translation and incisive analysis. We have both put an enormous amount of time and effort into producing something that we can be proud of. When casting my critical eye over other IELTS writing textbooks on the market I constantly find mistakes and imperfections,something I was very keen to avoid in this book. I spent hours agonising over tiny details,rewrote sentences again and again to try to make them perfect and enlisted the help of others to always get a second opinion. Thanks are due to my brother,Colin,who provided considerable input in the early stages of the project,and also my sister,Fiona,who helped with proofreading. It really was a family effort! The end result is hopefully something of consistently high quality that students can depend on.

Writing this book has been a rewarding experience which has no doubt improved me as a teacher. If it can be of help for even a small number of students I will be delighted.