One score is standing between you and the career you already earned.

You're stuck at 6.0 or 6.5 in Speaking, you need a 7.0, and your English is already good enough for the job you're trying to get. Watch this first — the problem isn't what you think it is.

“Your English is fine. Your Speaking score isn't. Here's why.”

[VSL — 6–9 minutes. Embed placeholder.]
Apply for the Band 7 Program

Five-minute application. Payment only after I've said yes.

Reach 7.0 in Speaking, or I keep coaching you — free. (The full terms are further down.)

TARGET
5.0 6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0

“I used to over-talk to sound impressive. John showed me it's better to stop performing and just communicate clearly. I got an 8 in Speaking.”

— Khải Anh
8 weeks — one-on-one 6.0/6.5 → 7.0 — The Band 7 Promise 6 clients at a time By application — I turn people down

You didn't fail the test. You were prepared wrong.

You've taken it more than once. Same result, give or take. And every time, the advice was the same: study more. More vocabulary. More predicted questions. More band-9 sample answers.

Here's what nobody selling you those things will tell you. When you're stressed about an exam, your instinct is to do more — study more, memorize more, say more. But the problem was never your effort. It's that an entire shortcut industry has grown up around this test — prediction lists, scripted templates, “advanced” vocabulary drills, tip videos — and every one of those shortcuts trains you to do the exact thing that holds your score down.

Because here's the truth about the exam. Memorized language is audible. An examiner can hear a rehearsed answer in about ten seconds. The band descriptors reward natural, flexible speech over polished recitation — so the harder you work at sounding impressive, the more you cap yourself. I've watched it happen for nine years. Capable people, good English, stuck at 6.5, doing everything their last teacher told them to do.

And if shortcuts were never your temptation, look at the other side of the same coin, because you were never the lazy one. You did the opposite. More idioms, more advanced grammar, more connectors, more complexity, because complexity felt like effort and effort felt like the answer. It's the same trap wearing a respectable disguise.

Shortcuts and complication look like opposites, but they're the same move: trying to pass by carrying more material into the room, instead of building the thing the test actually measures. Whether you can speak.

You've been studying harder inside a method that has a ceiling. The ceiling is 6.5.

There are three habits the shortcuts teach you, and all three keep you below 7.

You reach for a script instead of a structure. Memorized Part 2 answers, scripted openings and transitions — and the moment the examiner asks something you didn't prepare for, you've got nothing. The fix isn't more scripts. It's a framework: a structure that lets you organize your thinking in real time, for any question. That's a completely different kind of preparation, and it's the first thing we build.

You try to sound like a textbook instead of a person. “Moreover” instead of “also.” Academic words forced into a conversation. Five idioms crammed into a two-minute answer. None of it sounds impressive — it sounds rehearsed. Native speakers don't talk that way, and examiners know it. Sounding like a real person is easier, not harder — and it scores better.

You're chasing Band 9 when you should be aiming for clarity. Fewer than 1% of test-takers score a 9 — it's essentially native-level. Reaching for it is what creates the mistakes that keep you at 6.5: grammar you can't control, vocabulary that doesn't fit, performing instead of talking. Aim for clear, organized, and natural, and your fluency, grammar, and word choice all improve at once — because you stop second-guessing yourself. That's what a 7+ answer actually sounds like. Not someone being perfect. Someone who can communicate.

“I walked in a lot better, knowing I was fully prepared instead of second-guessing every word and tense.”

— Minh Thiên

You've felt this without naming it. The day you reached for every impressive word, monitoring and correcting and performing, and somehow it came out worse than the ordinary days when you just talked. That wasn't nerves. That was the method working exactly as it was designed to. The harder you performed, the lower you scored.

Getting you from the left column to the right one in eight weeks — using your own life, your own work, your own English — is the entire job of this program.

Built for one specific person. It fails outside that.

Read this honestly. If you're not on the list, don't apply — I'll say no, and we'll both have wasted the call.

The complete Band 7 system, built around your voice.

Nothing here is a course recording. Every piece is built from your English, your life, and your specific failure points — which is the only way I can promise the result I do.

8 private coaching sessions

45–60 minutes, one-on-one, every week. No groups, no rotating tutors — you get me, every week, for eight weeks.

A full practice exam every week, marked on video

Three short recordings a week — Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 — so you complete an entire Speaking exam in pieces. I reply to every single one with a personal video within 24 hours. That's 24 recorded coaching responses, where you don't get notes on your speaking — you get me speaking back, showing you the pronunciation, stress, and pacing that writing can't teach.

Your six-story Part 2 portfolio

Over six of the eight weeks we build six stories from your real life and work — together, with me leading. Not answers to memorize: a portfolio that proves your technique, and a working model that keeps you on track when a cue card asks for something you've never thought about.

The Six-Stage Narrative + AREA

My two frameworks, built over nine years, for the exact moments students freeze — one for stories, one for opinions. They don't give you the words; they give you a place to put your words. Drilled weekly until they stop feeling like structures and start feeling like talking.

4 mock tests with written band-by-band feedback

Four times across the program — in weeks 1, 3, 5, and 7 — we run a mock live inside your session: fifteen minutes under exam conditions, then a written breakdown across all four criteria showing exactly what's holding you below 7. Not “be more fluent.” The mock opens the session; the rest of the hour is spent working on what it just exposed.

The unfamiliar-topic week

A full week on the questions you could never have prepared for. A course can hand you prediction lists. It can't teach you to handle the question nobody predicted — and that's the one that decides your score.

FREE — IN THE TWO WEEKS BEFORE YOUR TEST

BONUS: The confidence session. A live 30–45 minute call in the two weeks before your test date. No corrections, no fixing — just feedback on your fluency, coherence, and framework execution, so you walk into the room knowing you're a capable speaker instead of hoping you are.

BONUS: My number on test day. Message me the morning of your test.

None of this is sold separately, because separately none of it works. The portfolio needs the frameworks, the frameworks need the weekly exam, and all of it needs one coach who can hear the same voice change across eight weeks.

Apply for the Band 7 Program

Five-minute application. Payment only after I've said yes.

You'll know exactly what's holding you below 7 within seven days.

It starts with a diagnosis.

In your first week you take a mock test — live, in your session — and get a written band-by-band breakdown of exactly what's holding you at 6.5. Most clients tell me this one document taught them more than their last three months of studying. The frameworks come immediately after, so you have the tools before we start building.

Then it's a weekly rhythm.

One session with me. One story added to your portfolio — six in total, which is what I consider the minimum to walk in genuinely prepared. One full practice exam, spread across three short recordings — Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 — each answered with a personal video from me. And every second week — weeks 3, 5, and 7 — we open the session with another live mock, so we're measuring the change under real conditions, not guessing at it. Repeat until the exam feels smaller than the practice does.

Then the week nobody prepares you for.

The last week is the topics you've never thought about — how to build an answer on the spot when the cue card is unfamiliar, and how to stay in the conversation when Part 3 turns abstract. Then we point everything at your test date.

“I used to freeze in Part 2 because I couldn't organize a story. John showed me how to structure it and link past to present, and suddenly I was fluent and easy to follow. The test felt like a conversation, not an exam.”

— Quỳnh Như

If you do the work and don't get 7.0 in Speaking, I coach you for another eight weeks — the whole program again, free.

I can promise that because I choose who I work with. The application isn't a formality — it's how I make sure I only say this to people I can deliver it for. There's no checklist to satisfy and nothing to catch you out. Just three things worth being clear about:

Speaking only, not your overall band.

I can't control your Reading section and won't pretend otherwise. The promise is 7.0 on the Speaking module, measured against your verified previous Speaking score.

Book your test within four weeks of finishing.

The sooner you test after we finish, the better you'll do — that's the only reason this condition exists. Booking is what counts, not the test date; if the earliest slot at your center is months away, you've still met it.

Do the work.

Send the recordings, take the mocks, show up. I'm not counting them. But the promise rests on you actually doing the program.

Run the worst case. You do the work, you miss the 7 — and you get the entire program again, one-on-one, without paying another dollar. The risk here isn't on you. That's deliberate.

“I used to over-talk. I'd repeat myself to fill space and try to sound casual, but the phrases I reached for came out a bit off. John gave me natural phrasing I could actually rely on, and a structure to hang it on. The real shift was realising I didn't need to show off, I just needed to communicate clearly. I got a 7 in Speaking.”

— Cao Trí

One more thing, and it only applies sometimes. If you miss the 7 and the mark doesn't match what I've been hearing from you for eight weeks, I'll pay for the re-mark myself. That's my judgment call, not an automatic step — and either way, the coaching restarts immediately. After eight weeks and twenty-four recordings, I'm in a position to have an opinion about whether a score was plausible.

Apply for the Band 7 Program

Five-minute application. Payment only after I've said yes.

The people who were where you are.

SPEAKING 7.0

“I used to over-talk. I'd repeat myself to fill space and try to sound casual, but the phrases I reached for came out a bit off. John gave me natural phrasing I could actually rely on, and a structure to hang it on. He got me to tighten my Part 1 answers so I stopped repeating, and to add more description in Part 2 where I'd been finishing too early. The real shift was realising I didn't need to show off, I just needed to communicate clearly. I got a 7 in Speaking.”

Cao Trí, Speaking 7.0 — HCMC, June 2025
SPEAKING 8.0

“John was genuinely critical of my performances, and that's exactly why I got better — honest feedback is extremely helpful when you're actually trying to improve. I got an 8 in Speaking.”

Khải Anh, Speaking 8.0 — HCMC, July 2026

The most expensive thing you own is the gap between you and the 7.

$2,497

The complete 8-week Band 7 Program, one-on-one.

Or two payments of $1,349 — half at signing, half at week four. The split costs a little more, which is why most people pay once.

What's it worth to close the gap?

Work out the difference between what you earn now and what you'll earn once your registration clears. That's your monthly number.

For almost everyone who applies here, this program costs less than one month of it. Every month the file sits waiting, you pay that number again — and unlike the program, you keep paying it.

The cost of yes

$2,497. Eight weeks. One hour a week with me, and three short recordings in between.

The cost of no

  • Your monthly number, again. And again the month after that.
  • Another test fee. Another wait for an open date, another wait for the result — and the same preparation that produced the 6.5, doing the work all over again.

“Having a real teacher coach your Speaking beats talking to an AI. You react quicker and you're actually prepared for the real thing, not just a script.”

— Trà Bảo

This offer is built so that the only expensive decision on this page is leaving it.

Apply for the Band 7 Program

Application first. Payment only after I've said yes.

This was never really about a band score.

Retake it the same way

Another prediction list, another test fee, another wait. Probably the same 6.5, because nothing underneath changed. And the registration, the visa, the salary — still on the other side of the wall, going to someone else.

Walk in as a speaker

The nerves drop, because the exam stops being a verdict on you. You get the 7, the file moves, the career starts. And the speaker doesn't expire with the test result — that one's yours for the rest of your working life.

Nine years on exactly this line.

I'm John Bunch. I know what the second 6.5 feels like — the moment you stop wondering what to study and start wondering whether the test is rigged against people like you. It isn't. But the standard way of preparing for it is rigged against you, and watching capable professionals get stuck inside it is what made me build this program.

I'm an American living in Ho Chi Minh City. I'm CELTA-certified, I trained in IELTS teaching methodology through the British Council, and I've taught IELTS Speaking since 2017 — hundreds of students, one section, one jump. That training matters here for one reason: it means I know what examiners are actually scoring, which is the whole thing most students never get told. Over those years I built the Six-Stage Narrative and AREA for the exact moments students freeze — one for stories, one for opinions. I'm not here to show you my English. I'm here to get you across to yours.

CELTA (Cambridge) British Council IELTS methodology training Teaching since 2017 Speaking only — one section, one jump
I teach these frameworks free on YouTube. It's the best place to see how I work before you apply.
[Photo placeholder — professional portrait]

An application, not a sales call.

Your last IELTS result, your target, your deadline, and what's waiting on the other side of the 7. Five minutes. Mostly I listen to you speak. I need to hear where you actually are before I promise you anything — the Band 7 Promise only works if I'm honest at this stage. If you're a fit, we start as soon as a place opens. If not, I'll tell you why and point you to the free resources that'll help you more right now. No follow-up sequence, no pressure.
Apply for the Band 7 Program

Five-minute application. Payment only after I've said yes.

Questions

Stop preparing to pass. Start becoming the person who already would.

I coach six people at a time. The application takes five minutes and I read every one.

Apply for the Band 7 Program

Five-minute application. Payment only after I've said yes.

Not ready? Follow the channel. Same argument, made for free.

The Band 7 Program — 6.0/6.5 → 7.0 in Speaking
Apply for the Band 7 Program