aubry i know that you have lived in a lot of other countries do you stay in touch with people who
like still live abroad this is actually one of the tragedies of my life that i have not
really stayed in touch part of it is because social media didn't exist when i was there
so we didn't make that connection and if i got a phone number or an email address i've lost it in
the years since and it's really sad i tried to look up a good friend from belgium
can't find her i don't know if maybe she married and has a different last name now
and i'm so sad that i can't find her what about you it's hard it is um yeah basically just from
taiwan though just because i was there for so long um and i still talk to a friend of mine
who is a full-time ielts examiner over in taiwan i still talk to him a few times a year
just to like catch up and see how he's doing but also i want that inside scoop on what's happening
in ielts because he's been a full-time examiner forever he's like he's done ielts examining
longer than anyone i know like seriously that's how long he's been an examiner so
we have uh we have a little news for you guys today um a couple changes a couple ways ielts has
uh changed in the past year um and what that means for you on the speaking test yeah and
it's straight from the mouth of an ielts og guys oh gee let's explain that because students could
use that slang on the test uh when do we say that yeah it actually stands for original gangster but
you're not literally talking about a gangster this is an idiomatic expression we use to talk
about anyone who's been involved in something the longest has been around the longest my neighbors
there's a few families and new families have moved in so we have a text thread of the ogs
meaning the neighbors who've been here the longest oh that's awesome that's so great
um yeah totally i i love this term it's so fun if someone's like um yeah anytime there's you've been
in a community for a long time you're like i'm an og here another phrase we use uh related to that
is to call somebody the granddaddy of something right if they like especially if they like started
a movement but also if they've just been doing it for the longest um so i could say uh my friend
mike who does all of the gardening at james school i could be like he's like the granddaddy of the
school gardens because like he started them himself like 10 years ago yes i love that you
guys are for sure gonna hear people referred to as the granddaddy of rock and roll or maybe yeah
the granddaddy of acting things like this someone who's been doing it the longest but i love that
slang of using it to just talk about someone you know who's been gardening the longest right
oh you're the granddaddy of gardening you're the og gardener like they're interchangeable
such good stuff for speaking but let's get into the examiner side of things now um examiners
are uh checked every couple years they have to be like checked and pre and re-approved right
re-certified to continue examining and it's getting tougher and tougher and the examiners
are checked just randomly we never know when but just randomly our recordings of the speaking test
will be sent to a granddaddy ielts person and they'll like grade us and you could be marked
standard or non-standard and if you have enough non-standards you're not allowed to examine
until you pass the standardization procedure i've sort of wondered as well i know students
will sometimes apply for a remark we often have students ask us should i refer reply or
apply for a remark and i wonder if enough examiners um you know someone applies for
a remark and it's granted if that would flag that re-examination kind of makes sense that it would
if um yeah yeah definitely um yeah there's so many aspects to this and reasons why ielts needs to
make sure every examiner around the world is doing exactly the same thing but it's kind
of getting out of control to be honest and that's what we're talking about today guys
um the expectations for examiners have changed and it is so much stricter than it was before so
this affects you as a candidate because um the examiner has to be much more strict with timing
and so now it's even less like a natural conversation like it's even more like a robotic
test because the examiner is just so strict with the timing so i feel like i should just
pepper you with some questions that maybe you know will give us some information that you learned
from this og examiner so give us some details there what is more tight what is stricter about
that timing procedure now so the timing for part one and part three um they're very very strict on
it now like part one has to be like exactly four minutes and 40 seconds like it's ridiculous and
um so you're asked three groups of questions in part one right so the first group is always like
work studies hometown right it's one of those three topics and then the next two groups are
could be about anything like cooking food travel best friends colors um so here's the timing the
first group that dependable one work hometown studies that one is two minutes okay and then
the next two have to be exactly one and a half minutes each and the examiner has to ask you all
of the questions there in that very strict time frame so what ends up happening to you guys to the
candidates is that the examiners are interrupting you like all the time which would kind of throw me
off if i didn't know about it yeah it's definitely going to happen even more so than in the past when
it could be a few seconds under or over and didn't matter so much the examiner is going to have to be
more on the ball about interrupting you if you go even just a couple of seconds if you potentially
are going to go over because they can't risk it or they're going to get flagged non-standard yeah
it would be stressful to be an examiner under these conditions because it's hard enough trying
to analyze the candidate's speech for these four different factors a nine different score
you know what i mean like you're doing all this calculation the whole time but now you're also
counting seconds like it's so hard so much to pay attention to scoring looking for everything the
student needs to do and also watching the clock that closely is going to be stressful wow tricky
that'd be awkward just to cut people off all the time like that yeah it happened enough before now
it's going to have to happen even more but again you guys have heard this before on the podcast
don't ever let that throw you off if the examiner interrupts you it's not affecting your score
just means you clearly had lots more to say but they need to move on to the next question
don't let it make you nervous yeah so i would say um yeah exactly like like aubrey said don't let it
throw you off you are proving to be more fluent if you do get cut off because it means you could keep
talking and i think i think the thing to practice now more than ever is to get to the point more
quickly like really answer that question right away and then give context you know and then
expand on it so i think um that slightly changes the way we're approaching part one answers now
that's a good point because you've got to answer the question you got to get to it before they have
to cut you off yeah yeah exactly exactly um so don't be worried when this happens guys so what i
think is is most sad about this is that this is in effect for part three as well this really strict
timing control um and i always liked the part three as an examiner because it used to be like
we're we were encouraged to develop a conversation like that was the point it was supposed to be a
developed conversation where i get to come up with my own questions based on the candidates
answers and that's like fun you know that's really fun but i mean not anymore because the examiner
has to ask every question in these two groups of questions in part three and again like they
all have to be done in a very strict amount of time and so again you're just gonna be cut off
a lot oh it's really unfortunate because i think that was actually a really cool thing
that the ielts tested was the ability in part three to be able to sort of react to
questions the examiner might as follow up on an interesting topic and dive a little bit deeper
and that's going to have to um be done away with a little bit in order to meet those timing
guidelines yeah exactly it's too bad so um i always liked the challenge of coming up with with
different questions you know like made it more fun the longer you examine it gets boring right so
that little freedom unfortunately has mostly gone away um so the last thing that you guys
should know about is more and more test centers from around the world i talked to somebody um in
australia about ielts i talked to somebody that works for the british council who's in portugal
and has to do with ielts i talk i've talked to so many people over the past couple weeks
because we really want to tell you guys the future of ielts how it's changing what to expect and so
here's kind of the last thing to let you guys know about more and more centers around the world are
really doing away with those paper exams um and instituting a lot more computer delivered ielts
exams so we have done shows before about the advantages of doing computer ielts and remember
three keys ielts our online course it does have a computer version and you can't you still can't get
a lot of computer delivered ielts prep courses so check out three keys ielts guys we were the first
to have a computer-delivered ielts course uh go to allianceenglish.com k-e-y-s um and if you have any
questions about ielts send us an email support all ears english dot com and don't forget until next
tuesday we have a very special offer on a grammar and speaking skills course aubry can you remind us
about that yes go check it out guys at all yours english dot com slash grammar we have this amazing
course you also get four live group classes with us which are the most fun i look forward to them
all week and it's really great grammar for ielts because it's simple you're learning exactly what
you need to do in order to improve that grammar course your grammar score in a really fun way
and right now you can save money and we have this fun competition where the first 10
students get special perks so you guys want to get in there as soon as possible so go to
allayersenglish.com grammar coupon code grammar for 10 off everything that aubrey just said all
right aubry uh have a great rest of your week yes you too jessica see you later bye