Aubry have you seen some of the comments lately on our YouTube channel because I know we talked
about words of affirmation a couple weeks ago and I have greatly feeling affirmed by these YouTube
comments yes I know I feel the same whenever I go and read them and they're just super complimentary
and we love when you guys let us know how these episodes are helping you because that's the goal
right yes it's entertaining I feel like it's engaging but we want to help you be ready for
IELTS right so when you let us know your scores and your success or just that you feel like you've
learned something you're more prepared that is affirming right it doesn't have to just be like
you guys are great let us know right what what you're learning and how it's helping I love that
totally so we are going to shout out a couple YouTube followers that left some great comments
um and then we are going to give you a sample part two speaking answer
um because we've seen that you guys really like these so we're gonna give one to you
um and the uh just a little sneak peek the question is about a stressful day and just getting
that out and verbalizing the stressful day helps us heal so we're gonna just accomplish so much
in today's show yes absolutely it's like therapy with IELTS answers podcast therapy okay um Aubry
do you want to read that first comment yes so this is from Clara gosita I would like to express my
gratitude to the both of you for being part of my IELTS success I got 8.5 in speaking that's insane
amazing just what Jessica said I didn't even pay attention to the cue card I just knew I had to
speak about a TV program it isn't organized I had fun it was basically a normal conversation with
an examiner first of all congratulations on that amazing speaking score well done that's incredible
um and I want to highlight the similarity in um what she said comparing it with our other
students who have done really well on speaking she said it was fun she said it was like a
conversation she said it wasn't perfect it wasn't even organized she didn't talk about
all the bullet points because you don't have to you don't have to talk about all the bullet points
in part two it doesn't have to be perfectly organized because that's not natural you are
graded on your ability to sound natural speaking English and that's what she did and she got an 8.5
amazing yes right the strategies work it's so much harder to follow those bullet points it's
going to feel more formulaic more robotic and you might not have fun and that might affect
your pronunciation your intonation instead yes follow these strategies to tell a story enjoy it
share detail it's going to be such a better higher scoring answer yep and I guarantee if you go back
and watch or listen to any of our model answers they're not perfectly organized because they're
not pre-planned or scripted because that's not how speaking is that's not how we speak English um one
more shout out before we move into that sample answer guys I want to thank Jack oh my gosh I
know this is a common Vietnamese name and I should really remember how to pronounce it um Newen no
that's not it Aubry do you know n g u y e n okay I have to admit something here I know we actually
just had a conversation about this name and someone said how it's supposed to be pronounced
and I was like what I had no idea and it was very different from the phonetic pronunciation
which is why I skipped that one leaving it for you hoping that you know how to pronounce it
that's why I was like why did you read the second one okay I know this is a common pronunciation
that I should know and Jessica's gonna know it I feel I feel terrible that my mind is blanking
right now on how I'm supposed to say that I know it's very different than the phonetic yes let us
know anyway Jack uh said I've been struggling to find a good IELTS speaking source and your
YouTube channels just brought me out of my stupor oh okay brought me out of my stupor
amazing vocabulary Jack I love it so a stupor is like you're you're in um like a like a waking coma
you're you're like brain dead you know you're Frozen um so we brought him out of that and he
said um you're too uh Charisma is really awesome which lights a fire under me and gets me going
with my IELTS Journey oh my gosh Round of Applause for Jack I love the vocab there
um okay great so let's get into this speaking uh model answer okay awesome this is gonna be great
okay Jessica I am going to ask you this answer we'll assume you have had that one minute to
prep since we talked about things being stressful a little bit all right are you ready and I will
time you here two minutes on the clock describe a stressful day at school or work oh my gosh okay so
um I actually have an answer ready because I could describe um the day I had like literally yesterday
all right let me lay it out for you I woke up at 5 30 in the morning which is uh very
early even though I do it all the time I my body still doesn't want to wake up that early
but nevertheless I woke up at 5 30. got out of bed made my breakfast ate it while I was
standing up in the kitchen um and then got dressed as quickly as I could because I had
to take my dogs out for a somewhat substantial walk because I knew they were going to be in
their kennels for seven hours that day um and anytime they are in their kennels for that long
um oh actually it wasn't seven hours they were gonna be in their kennels for four hours but
still I wanted to walk at least a mile with them um so I don't feel bad about leaving them
in their kennels when I go to work um so anyway woke up super early did all of that home stuff
um and then I had to go to an elementary school because I was substituting there
as a floater teacher um for the morning so a floater teacher is someone who
um hops from class to class because teachers have meetings sometimes and this is a scheduled thing
that happens and they need a substitute to help out so I was jumping from class to class
um not a lot of plans for me I just had to wing it with third graders fourth graders
fifth graders and to top it all off um I hurt my knee again I stepped backwards too quickly and
like ran into a chair and my bad knee just like gave out and I am certain that I tore
something even though I'm afraid to find out um so as soon as I was done teaching
um I flew home um and I had to have a meeting with Lindsay about all those days thank you oh my gosh
you covered the first like quarter of your day oh and I'm so worried about your knees even half
of it I didn't even get to talk about um all the all the cool work that I did for allers
English getting James from school going on a two mile walk with the dogs while he was at soccer
practice even though my knee hurt you see gosh I have so much more to say I guess I maybe do need
therapy and not just a podcast that is a busy day it's hopefully you guys will get a question like
this where you can absolutely relate and just describe the day right go for it especially
if it's a recent one you might not even get a quarter through your day and think look at all
of the interesting detail and vocabulary that came up I'm gonna share some of that
but yeah that's a busy day Jessica you know they're all busy like that right now but I I know
um I know that it's all worth it because I do love the work I get to do and uh yeah and
Summer's almost here so you know that's positive right okay the first thing I want to highlight
is a lot of these verbs you use that are actually really really idiomatic and interesting you could
have very easily say I walked here I walked there or I went here I went there and replaced that
instead you're saying I hopped from class to class I was jumping from classic class and then you said
I flew home so think about this guys when you're describing when you have to go a lot of different
places you do not want to just replace that verb or um repeat that verb over and over go or went
or walk there are so many more interesting ways to say this of course you weren't literally hopping
jumping flying nope that's all very idiomatic but we use these verbs to talk about doing something
quickly right yeah okay next I want to share this amazing linking phrase you started by saying to
top it all off if you guys can squeeze this into one of your answers it should be especially easy
on part two when you're sharing a story it means all of this was happening and then there was sort
of icing on the cake right to top it all off or like what made matters even worse these type of
linking phrases are so high level to boost up your vocabulary score and your fluency score as
well because then you're linking ideas in a very native natural interesting way and then your two
minutes flies by when you're sharing a story and actually can just share details from your life
um and I did go back and correct myself at the beginning there right because well because I
said something wrong but also I really wanted to show you guys that it can be
somewhat disorganized because that is how our brains work when we're speaking spontaneously
I and it wasn't like a vocab or grammar mistake it was just I gave you the wrong information
regardless of the type of mistake you can always go back and correct yourself and it will help
your score right yeah that's such a good point right you're talking about how long your dogs
were alone in the kennel and I noticed that you just like oh no actually it was four hours don't
be afraid to do that to like change information that is just interesting it's very native and
natural to to change the detail because it was wrong just included as part of the story if you
stop yourself from doing that you might end up hesitating or pausing because you're feeling
sort of disjointed just share it just say it if you think um I think this this to one of our
main strategies for doing well on speaking which is Being Human right like um it humanizes you I
love that as a verb to humanize but um correcting yourself regardless of the type of Correction
correcting yourself while you're speaking it does humanize you um just like showing your personality
in the vocab you choose the um inflection in your voice all of this stuff humanizes you which makes
you stand out which increases your score yes absolutely anything you can do to keep your
train of thought going if that's sort of narrating your thoughts and allowing yourself to share when
you realize you shared something wrong that's going to keep your train of thought solid so
that you don't have those pauses and hesitations do that that's such an important strategy yeah
follow your thoughts follow your thoughts with your words right and if you if you hesitate if
you're afraid to do that because you're like I can't correct myself he'll think I'm dumb whatever
um it interrupts you like you said right it stops your flow so follow your thoughts with
the words no matter where that's going it can and will be disorganized and I want that to be
your goal you know what I mean like stop worrying about being perfectly organized that's not real
that's impossible and it's not part of the scoring system right if you're not familiar
with the speaking scoring system you might assume that you know the fluency score is is more like
the writing score where organization does matter for your essays that's not the case that is not
part of your fluency score for speaking so yeah don't stress about the organization and is is
the timeline correct the examiner doesn't care doesn't know and is not scoring that
what words of wisdom we are bringing our students today
um guys if we have helped you at all today you have learned you have been entertained you have
been engaged while you're learning about IELTS from us uh please leave us a rating and review
wherever you're listening to the podcast um and if you're watching us on YouTube leave us a comment
awesome so fun Jessica thank you guys for the comments for the reviews we love them
we read them and I will see you next time sounds good bye Aubry bye foreign [Music]