i would give him 5.5 though he has noticeable grammar errors.

The differences between bands 5 and 7:

1. Band 5: uses repetition, self correction and/or slow speech to keep going; over-use some connectives and discourse markers, lack of flexbility;complex communication may cause fluency problems.

Band 7: with coherence; sometimes using some repetition and self-correction; using connectives and discourse markers with some flexbility.

2. le*cal resources: Band 7: uses some less common and idiomatic vocabulary and shows some awareness of style and collocation, with some inappropriate choicesuses paraphrase effectively

Band 5:uses vocabulary with limited fle*bility; attempts to use paraphrase but with mixed success

3. Grammatical range and accuracy:

4. Pronounation

I tend to give the candidate 6.

This answer addresses all parts of the task, stating the opinion in the first paragraph that there are more pros than cons, and giving reasons in the following paragraphs with examples from his/her own knowledge.

However, cohesion between sentences is not very satisfactory, and not always logical either. Ideas are not progressed smoothly. Grammatical rrors can be seen, but they rarely reduce communication

3. The bands focus on how a position is presented, extended and supported, how ideas are arranged, whether language is used naturally and fluently to achieve the writing purpose

When preparing students for IELTS writing, ask them to write an outline to explain their opinions and provide them with cohesive devices that can be used for their later writing.

Maybe a brain storm and a mind map may be of some help

Band 7

A: 1. Challenges: whether the students have answered the questions and give their ideas; how to make the writing cohesion from the sentences level and coherent from the text level; the use of wide range of vocabulary and sentences structure.

2. Give students good models and analyze the good examples to ask students to follow and imitate its structure and words.

1. The models can be presented to students. Ask them to make a comparison with their own and point out what're to be noted for these writing tasks.

For example, in task 1, summarise the information given by the graph first before going to details. When reporting main features, also write center ideas before supporting figures. And use transitional words properly to make the reporting logical and coherent.

In task 2,  state the opinion clearly and briefly at the very beginning,  and explain the reason why in the following paragraphs with sufficient sample or evidence. Show the logic by the proper use of cohesive devices. 

2. I think the key elements that an examiner are looking for include logic, views on certain phonomenon, and the ability to present the views convincingly and clearly

 1. The bands focus on four points: task response, coherence and cohesion, le*cal resource and grammatical range and accuracy.

2. From the Band descriptors, we can tell students to prepare the exam from this four points. For example, for the task response, we should require students to ansewer all the questions in the directions and give the supportive information to show their ideas. For the second point, we should tell students to organize infomation logically and clearly.

3. Do more exercises on graph or chart writing, and try to make students  familar with different kinds of graph and chart writing, the peak and valley of the trend, the focus and so on. 

students need to have good samples to follow before they start to write.

In task 1, they need to understand the importance of wrting an overview, then make contrast and comparsion. learning to use trend language in vital in line graph.

In task 2, they need to know the basic structure of this kind of essay, it's good to show them different kinds of tasks( discussion, causes and effects, argument...)

 Writing

Task 1 150 words/33%/20 minutes

Task 2 250 words/66% /40 minutes

Task 2 essay,

opnions essay,

Format very important

Challenges

A difficult skill.

Reliance on L1 writing styles and conventions-approppriate choices will be different

Cohesion(sentence level) and coherence(text level)

Must answer the question

Le*cal and grammatical challenges

Best practice and strategies

Modelling

Connecting with e*sting knowledge

Peer support

It's a formula! Students have to play the game.

Q1: A:These two models are all good examples. In my teaching, firstly, I will analyze the structure of writing to the students. For example, in Task 1, there are three paragraphs. In the first para, the first sentence shows the topic of the graph and the following sentences describe the basic idea of the graph. Para 2 describes the graph from two points, all species and the individual turtle species from two periods of time, from 1980 to 1982 and between 1990 and 2012, and shows the trend of line. Para 3 makes the comparision between Olive Ridley Turtles and Leatherback and Green Turtles. Secondly, I will ask students note the use of words, for example, verbs, adj. and some adv, such as relatively constant, slight increase, levelled off, slight fluctuations, relatively stable, decrease, plummeted, steady rise, plateauted, however, while, in contrast and minor fluctuations. These words can decribe the lines of graph clearly, which makes the writing coherent.

Q2: A: I think that an examiner will consider the follwoing points as the key elements : 1. the structure of writing

2. whether the questions have been answered

3. coherence and cohesion

4. the use of appropriate words and the correct sentences

5. Whether the writer gives the supportive information to support his or her ideas

i was a bit surprised this sample essay was graded at band 7, higher than I thougt.

however, on a second thought, this essay has a very good structure: introdcution, main body and a conclusion. it answers the question well and presents good support to its arguments. ideas are linked by the effective use of cohensive devices.

For this kind of test, the biggest challenge will be how to get ideas. Chinese students are seldom asked to write over 250 words to present their arguments, thus they get stuck in generating ideas, particulary when they are asked to discuss from both sides. 

I normlly select related articles from internet and send those articles to them before they start to write. reading might help them get some inspiration from others.

Students always use L1 writing styles to write English composition. They should note the cohesion and coherence and how to use some adverbs and conjunctions. Then students should answer the questions in their writing and note the spelling of words and grammatical structure.

I will definitely use the old exams to prepare the students. Also, some simulation exams.

It's quite helpful to tell our students to use cohension cohenrence words and phrases.

It's helpful for our students to make notes of those good expressions in the models.

it is difficult for me to prove precisely whether benefits outweigh disadvantages or vise versa, hopefully statistically. But after reading the sample writing, i knew i had worried too much. As long as you focus on either one of them, you can prove it outweighs the other. 

i will try to provide some e*sting format and train of thoughts.

band 7

3 focuses: vocabulary, coherence and cohesion, opinion

we have to preapre students with ways to express dialectic concepts.

How can we get the reading class more interesting?How can it be students centered?

Try to get students achievements,reading strategies, how to understand main ideas and guess the new words. Share their strategies.

Search some hot topic vocabulary 

Ways to motivate our students-

locate the information and guess the new words,

If we say"I'd like you to read this passage"

Technique 1:  Read the passage aloud to the students and you need to follow me while reading.

Students will be forced to read as well and trained as their eyes and brains work together. They didn't worry about the difficult words because they just focus on the pronunciation and whole description of the text. 

Technique 2: Take the vocabulary out and explain them to students before we prepare for reading the passage. 

Technique 3: Compare to check which key words is easier to locate and find to answer, especially what, when, where, why, 

e.g. Which two factors determins the size and shapes of a piece of sand?

Who claims that sand can have 

Let them go in pairs to skim and scan to find the answers

先读一遍，逼迫水平低的一起读，然后再讲题目中那些词是key words可以定位，让学生们去找

First of all,  we may encourage our students to listen more by motivating their interests in some subjects such as music, art, computer games and so on. 
I sometimes ask my students to listen to English only for pleasure. For example, if he/she is keen on musical plays, I would like to ask him/her to listen to them no matter how they can understand the lyrics or not. If they enjoy the operas or musical plays, they will try to learn and understand what the lyrics are someday.
Generally speaking, I show my students from time to time how to access videos online in English so that they can know more information about the inter* resources that they may need.
Besides watching some sport in English or listening  to music, I often recommend my students to watch English TV series or documentary films.  I advise that they should imitate the speakers' pronunciation and intonation while they are watching all kinds of films which can not only help them improve their ability of listening but also definitely improve their speaking to some certain.