I’m sitting here at a coffee shop in Melbourne right now, and I still can’t believe I’m writing this. Like, literally can’t believe it. A year ago I was sitting in my tiny apartment in Delhi, refreshing my bank account, wondering if I’d ever have enough money to do anything meaningful with my life. I was doing customer service for some Australian company, taking calls from angry people at weird hours, making 28,000 rupees a month, and just… existing. Not living. Just existing.
Then my friend Ankit told me about PTE. I didn’t even know what PTE was. He was talking about PTE coaching in Delhi, how he’s doing it, how he’s going to Australia. I was like “Good for you man, happy for you” but inside I was thinking, that’s for smart people. That’s not for guys like me who barely scraped through school. My English is shit, I can’t even speak properly at work, and everyone at the office can tell. So when Ankit kept pushing me to do PTE coaching in Delhi, I was brushing him off. But then something shifted.
One day at work, my manager literally told me I had no future there. Not in a mean way, but just factually. He said “You’re stuck here. If you want to go anywhere, you need to either have a degree from a good college or you need to leave India.” That hit me hard. Like, HARD. I remember just sitting at my desk after that conversation, not taking calls for like twenty minutes, just staring at my monitor thinking about how I’d wasted my life basically.
That night I called Ankit. I was like “Okay dude, tell me about this PTE thing. And the coaching. Which place did you go to?” He told me about Multilingua. He said it’s a small place, nothing fancy, but the teacher actually gives a shit. He said “Just go meet them. See for yourself. If you feel like it’s BS, you don’t have to join.”
Walking In and Expecting to See Some Scam
I went to Malviya Nagar where Multilingua was. I was genuinely expecting it to be some cramped office with a thousand students packed in, everyone studying intensely while some guy at the front barks at them about grammar. But when I got there, it was just… a normal office space. Kind of like a small coaching center setup, but chill. No one was yelling. There were maybe two people studying at desks.
A girl at the reception asked what I wanted. I said I’m interested in PTE coaching but just wanted to check it out first. She was nice about it, didn’t push me. She said “Do you want to take a quick diagnostic test so we can see where you’re at?” I was like okay sure, why not.
They gave me a computer, headphones, microphone. The test took like 45 minutes. I had to read stuff, write stuff, listen to people talking and answer questions about them, and speak into the microphone. The speaking part was weird as hell. I felt like I was doing something wrong. Like, how is a computer going to judge if I’m speaking good English?
When I was done, they called me into this small office. Guy’s name was Vikram. He wasn’t some scary authority figure. He was just… casual. He pulled up my test results on the screen.
I’d scored 52 in speaking. 49 in writing. 57 in reading. 54 in listening. He said my overall was around 53. I had no idea if that was good or bad.
He said “Okay so you want to go to Australia right?” I nodded. He said “Australia wants 65. You’re at 53. That’s like… twelve points. That’s definitely doable. Not in two weeks though. Not in four weeks. But eight to ten weeks? Yeah, you can do it.”
The way he said it wasn’t like he was trying to sell me something. It was like he was just being honest. He said “But you have to work hard. There’s no magic here. It’s just practice, practice, practice. And me showing you how to do it right.”
Okay I’m Actually Doing This
I paid the fees. Fifteen thousand rupees for one month. That was literally like… half of what I had saved. But I was done with doing nothing. I was done making excuses. So I paid and I committed.
My first class was like Tuesday morning or something. I took leave from work. There were three of us. Me, a girl named Sneha who wanted to go to UK for her master’s, and a guy called Rahul who was trying to get into Canada. That’s it. Just three students.
Vikram started explaining how PTE actually works. I genuinely had no idea before. He said it’s all computer-based. You sit in a booth, you speak into a mic, everything gets recorded. The computer marks your speaking and writing, then humans double-check it. When he said that, I was like “Okay so the computer is actually judging me” and that freaked me out a little.
He explained what the computer is actually looking for. Like, it’s measuring if you’re speaking fluently, if you’re pronouncing words right, if you’re answering the question properly. It’s not judging you as a person or your accent or anything like that. It’s just mechanical criteria.
Then he talked about how PTE is different from IELTS. In IELTS, you have a human examiner and you have a conversation with them. In PTE, you’re just answering specific questions, one after another, in specific time limits. No small talk. Just task, complete it, move on.
That actually made me feel better because I’m not good at small talk in English. I get nervous, I don’t know what to say. But if someone asks me a specific question? I can probably think of an answer.
The Speaking Thing Scared Me The Most
First actual practice, Vikram asked me to speak about my hometown. I had thirty seconds. I had to speak into the mic while he listened.
I opened my mouth and just started talking. But when I played it back, I sounded absolutely ridiculous. I was talking so fast, like I was trying to fit the entire thing into five seconds. My pronunciation was all over the place. And I kept going “Uhhhh” and “Errrr” between sentences. It was bad.
Vikram played it back and I was cringing so hard. He said “Okay so first thing. You’re rushing. Thirty seconds is actually plenty of time. Speak like you’re talking to someone normally. Not like you’re trying to finish before the time runs out.”
He also said I was mispronouncing words. He said the word “beautiful” and how I was saying it all wrong. He said it like three times and I tried to copy him. It was embarrassing as hell.
We did it again. I talked slower this time. It was better but still not great.
He said “Look, it’s your first day. You’re not going to be perfect. But here’s what you do. Every single day, you’re going to practice speaking. At home. You’re going to ask yourself questions and answer them. You’re going to record yourself and listen to how you sound. You’re going to practice your pronunciation. Every day. No excuses.”
So I went home and I started practicing. I felt so stupid standing in my bathroom, talking to myself, but I did it. My mom came and asked what the hell I was doing. I said “Mom, I’m practicing English” and she just laughed at me.
But I kept doing it. Every single day for two weeks. Standing in front of my mirror, asking myself questions like “What are your strengths?” or “How do you spend your weekends?” and then answering them. Recording myself. Listening to the playback and cringing at how I sound.
By like week three, I could hear the difference. My pronunciation was better. I wasn’t rushing as much. I wasn’t saying “Uh” every second word.
Writing Was Where I Actually Wanted to Quit
Writing nearly broke me. I have to be honest about this. I was close to quitting because of writing.
Vikram gave me a prompt my second week. Something like “Do you think social media is good or bad?” and I had to write an essay. Around 250-280 words. I’ve never written an essay in English in my life. In school we wrote in Hindi.
I just started typing. I wrote about how social media is bad because people waste time. Then I wrote about how it’s good because you can stay connected. Then I complained about how young people are depressed. It was all jumbled. No structure. Just random thoughts.
When I finished, I’d written like 290 words of absolute garbage.
Vikram read it. He didn’t say “This is bad.” He said “Okay so this is… all over the place. You’re not arguing anything. You’re just saying random thoughts about social media.”
He showed me what a proper essay should look like. Introduction where you say your opinion clearly. First paragraph supporting your opinion with evidence. Second paragraph with different evidence. Conclusion saying it again. That’s it. Just four paragraphs.
I was like “I know this from school.” He said “You know it but you’re not doing it. Knowing and doing are different things.”
I rewrote the essay. Following the structure he showed me. It was SO much better. Like, night and day difference.
Then he said “I’m going to give you an essay prompt every single day for the next three weeks. You’re going to write one essay every day. No negotiation. Every single day. You write, you send it to me, I mark it, I send it back, you look at my comments, you learn.”
I was groaning inside. Like, every single day? Really? But I did it anyway.
Day one essay was bad. Day two was still bad. Day five was slightly less bad. Day ten, I could actually write something that made sense. By day twenty-one, I could write a decent essay in like twenty-five minutes without struggling too much.
Writing was the hardest part for me throughout the entire eight weeks. But I got better. Not amazing, but better.
Reading and Listening Were Slightly Less Painful
For reading, at least I had some foundation. I’d read articles online, Reddit posts, random stuff in English before. So it wasn’t completely foreign.
Vikram explained PTE reading. There are different types of questions. Fill in blanks. Multiple choice. Reorder paragraphs. Some have four options, some have five.
He taught us how to think about each type. For fill in blanks, he said “Don’t just guess. Read the sentence. Understand what word grammatically and logically makes sense there.” Sounds obvious but when you’re under time pressure and panicking, you just start guessing randomly.
For reorder paragraphs, he said “Look for transition words like ‘however’ or ‘therefore’ or ‘in conclusion.’ Look for words like ‘this’ or ‘that’ that refer back to a previous sentence. That tells you the order.”
We did this for two weeks. Reading practice from actual PTE exams. Multiple times. Different passages.
By week four, reading wasn’t as scary.
Listening was weird because PTE listening is different from just listening. Sometimes you have to type what you hear. Sometimes you have to answer questions about what you heard. Sometimes you summarize what you heard in writing.
Vikram made us listen to recordings. Lectures, interviews, conversations. Then he’d ask us questions about what we heard. We’d answer. He’d explain what we missed.
He also made us listen to accents. Australian, British, American. PTE has different accents and you need to understand all of them.
By week six, listening was okay. Not perfect but okay.
The Moment I Realized It Was Actually Working
About three weeks in, I was at work. I was taking a call from an Australian customer. Normally I’d be nervous. I’d be thinking “Is my English correct? Am I pronouncing this right? Does this person understand me?”
But this time, I just took the call. I listened to what the customer wanted. I helped them. It was smooth. Natural. I wasn’t thinking about grammar or pronunciation. I was just communicating.
When I hung up, I realized something had shifted. I wasn’t scared anymore. The PTE coaching in Delhi was actually changing how I spoke English. I was becoming more confident.
That’s when I stopped thinking of it as “Oh I’m doing this to get a score” and started thinking of it as “Oh this is actually making me better at English.”
The Test Day
By week seven, I’d taken so many practice tests that the actual exam felt like just another one. The test center was near CP. I went there on a Tuesday morning.
Speaking was first. I’d practiced this so much that I just answered the questions. Hit my points. Moved on. I wasn’t even nervous.
Writing. I’d written so many essays that I just followed the structure. Introduction, body paragraphs, conclusion. Done.
Reading and listening. I’d practiced these a million times. They felt manageable.
When I finished, I walked out and I felt like I’d done okay. Not amazing. But okay.
Five days later, my results came. 68 overall. Speaking 67. Writing 64. Reading 69. Listening 71.
I’d aimed for 65. I got 68. I didn’t believe it at first. I checked like five times to make sure the email was real.
The Real Impact of All This
I got admission to two universities in Australia. I chose one. My visa got approved. I left India last month.
Right now I’m in Melbourne. I’m living in a share house with other international students. I’ve got my accommodation sorted. I start my master’s in two weeks. None of this would have happened without that eight weeks of PTE coaching in Delhi.
Like, I was literally stuck. Stuck in a job I hated, stuck in a country I felt like I had no future in, stuck in my own head thinking I was too dumb to do anything. PTE coaching in Delhi gave me a pathway out.
It wasn’t some magical thing. It was just eight weeks of hard work. Practicing speaking every day. Writing essays every day. Reading passages every day. Listening to recordings every day. And having someone guide me through it who actually knew what they were doing.
If You’re In The Position I Was In
Check out Multilingua. They’re here: https://multilingua.in/pte-coaching-in-delhi/
But honestly, the specific place doesn’t matter as much as finding somewhere with small batches and a teacher who knows PTE.
The real thing is, you have to actually do the work. You have to practice every day. You have to do your homework. You have to show up to class. You have to speak even when you feel stupid. You have to write even when you feel like everything you’re writing is garbage. You have to keep going even when you want to quit.
If I can do it, anyone can do it. I’m not smart. I’m not talented at languages. I just decided I was done being stuck and I put in the work.
That’s it. That’s the whole secret. There is no secret. Just work. And good guidance. That’s all you need.