IELTS Speaking in the exam, why can't I say what is in my mind?
do you know there are three solutions to say what is in your mind in front of the examiner?
three solutions so you can respond with a clear, strong, coherent answer that makes
the examiner sit up and pay attention strong answers that show the examiner your true ability,
and get the score you honestly deserve the ability to give a full presentation and express
clearly what is in your mind using all the vocabulary you know, not just 10% the skill
to deliver smooth, confident, automatic answers that are easy to understand and are not simplified
and best of all, when you start preparing like this, you won't need to spend a lot of
money with a tutor and you'll finally be certain that you're preparing for IELTS the right
way before I share these three techniques, I'd like you to know why so many IELTS students
take test after test after test why don't they say what is in their mind?
why do they speak a band 7 or higher with friends and then target band 6 in the exam?
why do so many students fail to show their true ability?
what stops them from speaking automatically and clearly?
the answer to these IELTS questions is how they prepare you see normal exam preparation
might just focus on learning lists of useful vocabulary or idiomatic expressions but unless
you actually start using them, it's near useless a lot of students watch videos about useful
words and phrases but they get very little opportunity to put it into practice they watch
lots of movies and read books and TED talks or worse, they take test after test after
test so what are the three steps to saying what is in your mind and having a successful
IELTS exam? number 1 combine both language skills and exam skills number 2 move your
passive vocabulary into your active vocabulary number 3 relentless practice having a great
exam and passing IELTS with the score you truly deserve is nothing more than getting
familiar with the exam and movingly the English you have in your passive vocabulary into your
active vocabulary when you do this, all the vocab you know, understand, and recognize
in movies, books, and online starts to become your active vocabulary building this ability
then gives you the best possible foundation for the exam in a minute I'll explain more
about active and passive vocabulary and exam skills, but let me mention that if you're
in a hurry you may want to look at the IELTS speaking confidence course on the course there
are more tips and quick fixes to common issues so you can impress the examiner with confident
fluent answers you can get familiar with the exam, the format, and the questions and you
can also get used to different examiner accents so there's no misunderstandings on exam day
it will provide you with a system for fluent coherent answers and you can test your pronunciation
and you get feedback that pushes you to improve who's the course for?
the IELTS speaking confidence course is for students who need to boost their confidence,
improve their fluency, and pass IELTS now let me explain more about language skills
and exam skills and of course active and passive vocabulary this is one reason why exams such
as the IELTS are quite difficult not only do you have to develop your language skills,
you also have to develop your exam skills an example of one of the exam skills you need
is the ability to speak for two minutes without stopping now this is probably a challenge
even in your own language and this is why it's important to be familiar with the concept
of active and passive vocabulary now you can probably read books, advanced books you could
probably watch films and understand everything, follow conversations and watch everything
however, when it comes to the exam you fall flat what is happening here is that your receptive
skills, listening and reading, are ahead of your productive skills, speaking and writing
and this is totally normal do not worry about this this is exactly how you learned your
own language first, you probably listened then you probably started speaking then reading
and then writing however, when it comes to English, for some reason, it’s taught in
a complete reverse and more often than not, we start with writing, possibly speaking then
later reading and listening, which is completely unnatural recognizing vocabulary in films
and books is fantastic it's a great skill and it's a great place to work from for improving
your language skills this means we have a large passive vocabulary but when we want
to speak or use this vocabulary sometimes we find it's not there we can't communicate
what's in our mind although we know exactly what we want to say this is very common for
English language learners and it's intensified when the topic we're talking about is unfamiliar
you see when you're talking with a friend or a family member, you're probably talking
about a familiar topic you've probably had the conversation a few times before a topic
about work, a topic about your hobby or your interest and that's one of the reasons why
this vocabulary has moved into your active vocabulary and this is the reason why you
can speak automatically, smoothly, and clearly and you've got very little problems in communicating
what's in your mind now if I ask you to talk about a subject that you're not so familiar
about, if I ask you to talk about musical instruments and even if I ask you to talk
in your own language about musical instruments, maybe after about 10, 20, 30 seconds you'll
start to slow down, you’ll start to um and uh and the reason why is because this is a
topic that you're not so familiar about, unless you're a musician of course and this is what
I'm talking about when we speak in a second language and we're not familiar with the topic
then the challenge is intensified the new app that we're developing at IELTS podcast
deals with this exact problem and I'm quite excited about it and if you want to learn
more about it just click in the link below so going back to exam skills and language
skills in Part 3 it starts getting a little abstract the examiner is going to start asking
you about topics that you may be unfamiliar with musical instruments, for example do you
think it's important for children to play musical instruments?
next question why do you think it's important for children to play musical instruments?
why do you think it's important for children to start playing musical instruments at a
young age?
so one exam skill that we need to bring this vocabulary into our active vocabulary is to
get familiar with a wide range of topics this familiarity makes your answers smooth, automatic,
and much quicker and most importantly because your answers are like flowing, you'll be able
to communicate what's inside your head so to get there there's three ways one you can
have a look at the app that I just mentioned two you can have a look at the online speaking
course and three you can do what we're going to look at now which is moving vocabulary
from our passive into our active vocabulary the Echo 10 Technique is a very useful technique
even if you've got a speaking partner or an IELTS tutor I still recommend you to use this
technique and the reason is is because it's very effective for bringing or for transferring
passive vocabulary into our active vocabulary domain also its effectiveness is amplified
if we use it with IELTS materials because there is a possibility or strong possibility
that the phrases that you're repeating will be used or can be used in the exam now what
we're going to do is listen to a mock speaking exam Part 2 and as you know, Part 2 usually
is one of six areas it could be describe a person, describe an object, describe a place,
describe an activity, describe your favorite book, film, magazine or describe an event,
festival, concert, celebration and what we're going to do is we're going to talk about a
location we're going to talk about a place so you'll see the text on the screen and what
I would like you to do is after you hear it, you can repeat it and if you don't want to
read it, then you can just put your hand over the screen or just don't look at the screen
or just close your eyes either way there'll be a small pause between each slide I'm going
to describe a place I went to last year it's a small city in Ukraine it's called Lviv it's
got beautiful architecture it's not the typical industrial hard Soviet style it's more the
quaint typical medieval European style the place is called Lviv, and it's really
a delightful city people are usually quite friendly and in the cafes the customer service
is interesting I have to admit when I went there the people were really friendly and
they were really open they introduced me to more friends and their family they even took
me on expeditions into the Carpathian Mountains I remember once actually we went up to the
mountains and we went on this old ski lift right up into the mountains and we could see
all around and it was spring as well so we had a really good view it was clear and yeah
it was just a really enjoyable experience another interesting point is that at the moment
it's rather cheap especially if you're spending euros there I think this is because of the
unfortunate conflict on the western side at the moment there's been a lot of political
instability and it's caused the currency to fall making it rather cheap for foreign people
going there and that's my small presentation about a place I've been to I hope you enjoyed
it now for that speech I used the Reflect and Fill 6 Method this is a method that gives
you six pointers or concepts to think about while you're doing your talk and it just helps
you expand your answer and it's especially useful if you struggle to meet two minutes
I'll give you an example so we talked about the details, the mountains, the ski lifts,
the contrasts it was cheaper than Western Europe and the reason why was because of the
conflict this was the because my feelings there the people were really friendly for
example they took me to the mountains that's my small story and the question words who,
what, why, when, where, how well it was last year I think I mentioned that who, the locals
there were friendly why were they friendly?
they took me to the mountains what did we do there?
ski lift and those are just ideas or like triggers to help you come up with more content
you don't have to follow this exact structure step by step it's just useful to help you
to guide you to give a more expansive or fuller answer now we've reached the end of the tutorial
thank you for watching all of this if you like the video, please, please give us a thumbs
up and also tell us in the comments below which technique you're going to use and how
it helps you and as I said before if you want to advance faster you can have a look at the
app that's going to be launched soon or you can have a look at the course which has already
started and it's proving very popular all the best