Started ELSA prep in late February with an overall score of 4.5 and just got results showing 6.9. Posting this because when I was looking for real improvement timelines I couldn't find many specific accounts - just generic advice. My target was 6.5 for a visa application so I'm happy with where I landed.
The biggest gains came from pronunciation drilling, not grammar study. Went from 4.1 to 6.8 in pronunciation specifically by spending 45 minutes daily on minimal pairs and connected speech patterns. My native language is Vietnamese and the English consonant clusters are genuinely hard - th, str, spr sounds. I recorded myself every single day and listened back the same night, which felt awful but made a measurable difference by week 4.
Fluency score went from 4.8 to 6.7 which surprised me. I focused on reducing pause frequency rather than speaking faster. Counted filler words in recordings and set weekly targets. By week 8 I was down from an average of 14 fillers per minute to about 4.
The areas with smallest gains were vocabulary (4.3 to 5.1) and conversation (4.6 to 6.1). Vocabulary improvement just takes longer. If your target is above 6.5 in vocabulary alone, plan for at least 16-20 weeks, not 11.
Vocabulary gains being slower tracks with my experience. I studied 14 weeks and vocabulary went from 4.7 to 5.4, which felt disappointing but apparently that's just the nature of passive vocabulary building.
Fluency and pronunciation are where you can actually move the needle in weeks rather than months.
The self-recording approach is underrated. Most people resist it because hearing yourself is uncomfortable but the feedback loop is faster than anything else.
Vietnamese to English pronunciation challenges are specific - did you use any particular resource for the consonant cluster work?
The filler word counting strategy is something I hadn't considered. I'm at 4.9 overall and fluency is my weakest area. Starting a recording log tonight.
Going from 4.5 to 6.9 in 11 weeks is a significant jump. The 45 minutes daily pronunciation drilling is the key detail here - most people do 15-20 minutes and wonder why progress stalls.
Honestly I almost quit around week 5. My pronunciation score wasn't budging and I started thinking maybe some people just can't do this. What changed it for me was stopping the full mock tests every day and spending a whole week just on fluency -- like, not caring about accuracy at all, just talking. It felt stupid but something clicked after that.
The thing nobody tells you is the scores don't move gradually. You'll feel like you're going nowhere for weeks and then jump. If you're in that middle stretch right now where nothing seems to be working, just keep going. I'm glad I didn't bail when I wanted to.
That's really encouraging to see, congrats. I'm about 5 weeks into my own prep and just hit a 5.8 on a practice session yesterday which felt huge coming from a 5.1 when I started. Still not where I need to be but the gap is closing faster than I expected.
I'm planning to sit the real exam in late August, gives me another 6 weeks to keep pushing. Pronunciation has been my weak spot so I've been drilling that specifically. Did you find one area made the biggest difference for you overall, or was it pretty even across all the skills?