you guys uh so we're starting out laughing already um we do have a fantastic episode for you today
but real fast let's talk about why we're laughing aubrey what what just happened oh we went to start
the episode and i grabbed a drink and was going to just take a quick drink but it's one of those
where you squeeze the water instead of putting it on your mouth and it like shot into the back of my
throat and went down the wrong pipe into my air tube into my air tube um your esophagus i guess
i'm not an anatomy major i'm not a doctor these are all parts of the throat um guys
we are going to answer a few questions about speaking part two today um and it's kind of
funny actually i can connect these questions because both of the questions are worried about
small mistakes that could affect fluency scores in speaking part two so we'll answer those questions
um this is really important to think about and prepare for guys because you can't start over
like me and aubry luckily we can start over you guys would have heard some really terrible podcast
intros if we couldn't start over um so anyway guys there's no like second chances on ielts right
that's why it is so important that you prepare as much as you can make ielts your part-time
job before your exam guys um and remember you can find out like how much preparing you need to do
you can find out what your band score would be right now if you took the test if you take our
quiz and you get a five then maybe you should book the exam i'm gonna say at least three months from
now you know what i mean like you need to know where you're at so go to allyousenglish.com my
score take our free ielts quiz and we do give you materials as well that are free
based on the score you get so definitely take that quiz guys um all right so these two questions were
left on our youtube channel thank you subscribers um if you are watching us on youtube hit subscribe
listening to the podcast hit follow uh aubry can you hit me with the first question
yes this first one is from from mufu in speaking part two i paused for like three seconds and
continued i fear it will have a great impact on my overall performance okay whoops i read the second
one this i'm all full of mistakes today jessica you are totally fine i'm doing everything i can to
throw you off no we're good we are great you guys we're just trucking through okay but actually so
guys i mean everybody can everybody makes mistakes when they're speaking sometimes right me and aubry
while we're recording we just fumble sometimes with words everybody does it right so if you are
a student and you fumble you pause a couple times for three seconds like the student did
don't worry that's fine it's natural okay we don't expect you to be perfect that's impossible so if
you pause for like a couple seconds in part two i think it's fine however any more than a couple
seconds gets awkward what does the examiner do in speaking part two when a student pauses aubrey
yeah so if and speaking part two if the two minutes have not elapsed yet right if you
still have time in that two minutes they aren't going to help you they're not going to stop you
they're going to just wait silently for you to keep speaking maybe gesture with their hand
or they might say something like can you tell me more about the topic because they're trying
to give you every chance you can to speak for that full two minutes to get everything you
need the variety of vocabulary the linking phrases everything they're listening for if
you stop really early you have a way lower chance of getting it all in there exactly exactly um so
if you have been listening to the show for a while we did an episode about a month back
um regarding how ielts is a lot more strict now with their examiners and so this includes
what they're allowed to do in part two right so that silence does get awkward they cannot help
you they cannot say you know can you give me an example can you tell me about blah blah blah no
all they can be like is can you tell me more about the topic or they do this with their hands that's
it um and that could throw you off for the rest of the test because then you're in your head and
you're like oh my god terrible fluency what can i do yes and i have had students in mock speaking
tests just like you said jessica get flummoxed get thrown off a little bit and ask can i start over
and they can't you know we just have to say no and that's also taking their time and so
it's really good i think for students to go in knowing no matter what you're not going to be
able to start new start over so even if you do make a mistake don't let it throw you off
just keep talking right no matter what it's the examiner is looking at your overall performance
as a whole like you said if there's a little pause here a second here it's okay keep going
don't let it destroy your whole score exactly exactly so in order to be able to keep going and
not have awkward silences um because really guys you don't want any silence on the exam
um in order to prevent that you need to have great filler phrases um when i'm thinking
i use so and well but you can draw them out and it's still natural still fine so if i'm
thinking if i'm trying to think of something to say or get back on track then i could be like so
or well like you could just make it longer that's fine yes exactly i always let students know when
we're talking about linking phrases slow down right yeah let each word take a little more time
even if you're going to say something like to be honest i haven't thought about this in a while
like say it slowly draw it out give yourself time to think of what you're gonna say next
yeah slowing down even just a little bit guys it improves your fluency score
because you have time to think right clear ideas and it improves your pronunciation score
because you have space for intonation and stress for expression so it improves two
scores if you just slow down a little bit um one last phrase before we get to the next question
um here's a longer one write this down rewind and write it down if you can't the first time
you could say so ah yeah okay sorry i forgot where i was going for a second this is so native
i see this friends say this because it'll be like telling a story and then just something
will pop in your mind that distracts you something will happen that distracts you and so will say
oh okay i forgot where i was going exactly this is a great filler phrase to use we say it all the
time right you're telling a story and maybe you just you veer off a little bit and you're like
wait where was i going with that anyway and then just like get back to the story and it's actually
really idiomatic because you're not going anywhere right so to talk about your mind wandering where
yeah i forgot where i was going is an idiomatic filler phrase so double whammy
double whammy um all right what's the next question aubry okay so this is what if you speak
for 1 to 1.5 minutes but covering all the points with good grammar and coherence and that is from
psycho venom love it thanks for following i love it um okay yeah so great question
i know it doesn't seem fair that you could be marked down um for speaking fewer than two minutes
as long as you have like great linking phrases that's the coherence and you have great grammar
but remember guys there's four separate totally separate categories that you're scored on
right um so if you're using a lot of grammar structures and you have almost no errors then yeah
you will get a high grammar score right because that grammar score is only based on your grammar
however fluency and coherence that first category has two parts fluency and coherence what's the
difference between fluency and coherence fluency is being able to continue talking share details
about any topic without long hesitation right how fluent are you whereas coherence is more about
your linking phrases how organized is it how well are you flowing from one idea to the next exactly
so if you want a seven or higher for fluency and coherence then both fluency and coherence have
to like be stellar right so back to this guy's question see i'm getting back on track back to
this guy's question um i say guy maybe it's a girl psycho venom could be a female be a chick
love it either way uh but yeah so you stop at a minute right you it will even if your performance
in part one and part three are great it'd be real hard to get above a six for fluency and coherence
if you were only able to speak for a minute in part two okay you have to speak for the whole two
minutes guys um if you want a seven or higher okay so the message that's being sent to the
examiner then when you stop before two minutes it means you don't have more to say about it exactly
and these part two questions are so open right you're describing something and even if you don't
have more to say directly directly answering that question you guys have heard us say this before
as long as you have answered that question go on a tangent share anything related just to show your
fluency that you could give details about a lot of related things to this topic exactly exactly um
and one last note about this question because uh this person also asked like but they covered all
the bullet points in that one minute or whatever guys that doesn't matter at all this is this is
the problem with depending on the bullet points is you can't talk for a whole two minutes if you're
only covering the bullet points so again if you've been listening to us for a while guys you should
know by now that the examiner does not care about those bullet points i only care that you
are describing what i'm asking right describe an event describe an experience describe a person
i don't read those bullet points those are just there to help you think of stuff okay but your
score isn't based on covering those we don't care we just need you to talk for two minutes yes in
fact it's a really good strategy to not even read them ignore them entirely and instead think of a
cool interesting story that's related that you could share way easier to fill the two minutes
and then you're not feeling stuck in in answering those bullets which might pull you away from
a story you could tell totally totally um yeah those bullet points ruin scores all the time i've
i've literally seen it happen in person on the exam um in fact when we give mock speaking tests
to our three key students we don't even give them the bullet points like i just give them
that first line and i'm like okay you gotta talk for two minutes now let's go oh you know sometimes
students will say oh what about can i have the bullet points i'm like no you don't need them
i know like not later do not have those you don't need them all right guys so remember
take our free ielts quiz english dot com slash my score find out what you would get on the exam your
real band score if you took it today in just five minutes guys always english dot com slash my score
all right awesome aubry thanks for chatting today yep see you later bye guys