IELTS Speaking Masterclass

Laurie Gormanns is an IELTS preparation specialist and English language educator with more than a decade of experience helping learners reach the highest levels of the test. Over her career she has prepared thousands of students for both the Academic and General Training modules, with many of her speaking students going on to achieve Band 8 and above.

She holds a master's degree in applied linguistics and the Cambridge DELTA, and began her career teaching intensive English in Dublin, Ireland, where she first noticed a pattern: her strongest students were rarely the most gifted. They were the most consistent. That observation became the foundation of her teaching method — structured frameworks, disciplined recording practice, and honest self-assessment.

Laurie has since designed speaking curricula for language schools across Europe and Asia, trained other teachers in IELTS methodology, and produced a library of model answers and mock tests used by students worldwide. She is the author of the IELTS Speaking Masterclass series, and the approach in this book reflects everything she has learned from the thousands of hours of student recordings she has analysed.

When she is not writing or teaching, Laurie records speaking practice material, interviews former IELTS examiners for her teaching community, and insists that every student she meets open a voice recorder and speak for at least fifteen minutes a day. She lives in Dublin.