Ielts English

IELTS English Learning

IELTS preparation workflow designed for writing and speaking plateaus at Band 5.5-6.

When to Use

• User wants to read Aeon articles and extract useful sentences
• User practices IELTS Writing (Task 1 / Task 2)
• User wants writing feedback and band score assessment
• User practices IELTS Speaking topics
• User wants to organize and review a sentence bank

Aeon Article Scraping Strategy

Aeon uses Vercel security (Cloudflare). Direct requests may be blocked with 429. Use layered fallback:

Strategy 1 (Preferred): WebFetch / Playwright

Use browser automation or web fetch tools to access article content.

Fetch article page → Extract body text → AI extracts sentences

Strategy 2 (Fallback): Search + Fetch

If homepage is blocked, search for specific article URLs, then fetch individually.

Search "site:aeon.co/ideas [topic]" → Get article URL → Fetch single article

Strategy 3 (Last Resort): Backup Article Library

Classic articles if Aeon is unreachable:

• https://aeon.co/ideas/what-is-the-purpose-of-education
• https://aeon.co/ideas/technology-is-valuable-but-it-can-also-be-a-trap
• https://aeon.co/ideas/the-city-is-a-machine-for-making-connections
• https://aeon.co/ideas/we-need-a-new-ethics-for-the-anthropocene
• https://aeon.co/ideas/why-we-should-cherish-our-embarrassment
• https://aeon.co/ideas/if-you-trust-science-you-should-trust-the-experts-too
• https://aeon.co/ideas/what-the-ancient-greeks-can-teach-us-about-the-art-of-argument

newspaper4k Usage (NLP helper)

When HTML content is successfully obtained, use newspaper4k for NLP processing:

from newspaper import Article
import warnings
warnings.filterwarnings('ignore')

# Note: Do NOT use article.download() — Aeon will 429
# Instead inject HTML obtained via fetch:
article = Article(url)
article.html = html_content  # HTML from fetch tool
article.is_downloaded = True
article.parse()
article.nlp()

print(article.title)       # Title
print(article.text)        # Clean body text
print(article.keywords)    # AI-extracted keywords
print(article.summary)     # AI-generated summary

Core Workflows

1. Aeon Article Reading + Sentence Extraction

Process:

1. User specifies an Aeon article URL or topic
2. Fetch article using the layered fallback strategy
3. Extract 5-8 high-quality sentences (usable in IELTS writing/speaking)
4. For each sentence provide:
   • Original sentence
   • Chinese translation
   • Key vocabulary/collocations
   • Transfer demonstration (rewrite as IELTS-ready sentence)

Sentence Selection Criteria:

• Contains advanced collocations — critical for Band 7
• Varied sentence structures (inversion, subjunctive, participle, etc.)
• Topics relevant to IELTS (education, technology, society, environment)
• Prefer "universal templates" reusable across multiple topics

Output Format:

## [Article Title] Sentence Collection

### Sentence 1
> **Original**: "..."
> **Translation**: ...
> **Key Collocations**: ...
> **IELTS Transfer**: Rewritten as "[IELTS writing/speaking version]"
> **Applicable Topics**: ...

### Sentence 2
...

Output file: [workspace]/english-learning/daily/YYYY-MM-DD-[slug].md

2. Sentence Bank Management

File path: [workspace]/english-learning/sentences.md

# IELTS Sentence Bank

## Education
| Original | Key Collocation | IELTS Transfer | Source | Date |
|----------|----------------|----------------|--------|------|
| ... | ... | ... | Aeon/Article Name | 2026-05-26 |

## Technology
...

## Society
...

3. IELTS Writing Feedback

Assessment Dimensions (strictly aligned with IELTS official criteria):

Feedback Output:

## Writing Feedback Report

### Overall Band: X.0 / 9.0

### Sub-scores
- Task Response: X.0 — ...
- Coherence & Cohesion: X.0 — ...
- Lexical Resource: X.0 — ...
- Grammatical Range: X.0 — ...

### Detailed Corrections

| Original | Correction | Reason |
|----------|------------|--------|
| ... | ... | Grammar/Collocation/Logic |

### Upgrade Path (5.5→6.0→6.5)
1. ...

4. Speaking Topic Practice

• Part 1: Daily conversation (hometown, studies, hobbies, etc.)
• Part 2: 2-minute monologue (describe a time when...)
• Part 3: In-depth discussion (abstract discussion related to Part 2)

Practice mode:

• User selects topic → 1 minute preparation time → Generate model answer → Compare and analyze
• Encourage using collocations from the sentence bank during speaking practice

Study Rhythm

• Daily: 1 Aeon article + extract 5 sentences
• Weekly: 2 writing exercises (1 Task 1 + 1 Task 2)
• Weekly: 3 speaking topic practices
• Weekend: Review weekly sentences, do transfer exercises

Data Sources

1. Aeon (aeon.co) — Long-form essays, broad topics, refined language
2. The Guardian — News commentary, suitable for Task 2 materials
3. BBC — Multimedia resources, suitable for speaking materials
4. IELTS Liz / Simon — IELTS writing model answers