The students at Lexis Brisbane have a range of English goals that they are working towards. For many of our students who are pursuing higher education, test preparation courses are an excellent way to work towards their goals.

Santiago is one of the students. He started at Lexis Brisbane in June 2022 and began with the General English program. After reaching the Upper Intermediate level, Santiago started studying in our IELTS preparation course with Jordan. We asked Santiago about his thoughts and opinions about living and studying in Brisbane.

So, tell me about yourself?

My name is Santiago, my Instagram account is… I’m joking! I’m 24 years old, I’m from Colombia, from the capital Bogota. But now I live in a small town, it’s a very cozy and tiny town. It’s very nice. Basically, I am an industrial engineer in Colombia and I came here because I just want to learn English.

It sounds like a big change moving to Australia! How is your life in Brisbane?

My life in Brisbane is very busy right now because our money in Colombia. So right now all my days in Brisbane are work, work, work, so I usually wake up, come here to Lexis to learn English and then after that I do some Uber Eats or something like that. I have my lunch, I go to the gym and then I go to my other job which is in a bar making cocktails. I am the bartender there.

So it’s hard but right now my goal is to try and make friends that want to stay here in Australia so I’m going to have friends for a little bit longer.

Because all the friends I made in my first 3 or 4 months have already gone back to their countries. So right now I am a little bit alone, but the truth is that a lot of people are coming all the time so you can find your soul mate from all around the world. That’s amazing because you can find new people that you want to spend your time with.

There are many different places you can study in Australia. Why did you choose to come to Brisbane?

I chose Brisbane because of the weather. When I was in Colombia planning my trip they said that Brisbane has amazing weather and everything is going to be amazing because it’s always sunny and warm. It’s very close to the beach as well but the beach is not here, and I really like that because I am not really a beach guy I prefer the cities.

Because it was cold I got a little bit sick at this time but right now it’s getting warm but it’s still very cold. So I think that all the people lied to me. Even though (despite this) it’s a nice place to stay because it’s not too hot you have some sunny days sometimes so that’s nice because it’s sunny and it’s not too hot. But I came here because I want the heat.

Most students choose the General English course, why did you choose to prepare for IELTS?

I am studying IELTS because the plan for my future is to do a masters degree so if I want to do a masters degree at any university in the world I need to have a good level of English. They always ask for a 6.5 in the IELTS test at least so I started to do IELTS because I really want to start my masters degree.

I don’t know if it will be here in Australia or maybe in some European country or where but I feel that to do the IELTS is very nice because you have the certificate to say that you know English. Even if you don’t want to study anything and you just want to go to work for a big company and they ask you for your level of English and they ask for your certificate and that helps a lot.

What is an average day like in your IELTS preparation class? Is it similar to General English classes?

Usually in my IELTS classes we have a test like every day that prepares us to respond in a faster way. That helps us more to organize our time during the real test and we also read a lot of things, we see a lot of new vocabulary and some grammatical structures.

We are always talking and reading and writing and these kinds of things that, of course, help you to improve your English because you are doing these things all the time. So it’s not like you just pay attention to the class like in General English classes, you need to do things all the time. It helps a lot to improve. All of my classmates are really good at English which makes me want to improve because I want to be at the same level that they are.

Sooooo, be honest… What do you think about your teacher?

Jordan is the best teacher ever. He’s really smart, his pronunciation is amazing, he also knows about Australian culture, British culture, American culture, so if you have any questions about the language he is able to help you with that. He’s very funny and has a lot of different kinds of activities that make the process of learning English easier and more fun. It’s not the classic kind of English teacher that is always at the board writing. He makes the process much more fun.

We’d like to say a HUGE thank you to Santiago for taking the time to answer our questions. We know it will be very helpful for other students who wish to study IELTS or exam preparation classes in Brisbane.

Find out more about IELTS preparation at Lexis Brisbane

Santiago is currently enrolled in our IELTS exam preparation class. Lexis Brisbane runs IELTS in both morning and evening shifts, with weekly mock tests and detailed feedback from our trainers — ideal preparation for university entry and skilled migration.