Hi, everyone!
And welcome back to this speaking practice video.
We are looking at part 2 of the IELTS speaking test today as usual.
I'm here with the wonderful Fiona, Hello Fiona!
Hello everybody!
Fiona is going to give me a card just like part two of the test.
I'm going to make some notes on my computer that you can see.
Remember in the test, you'll be making notes using a pencil and paper.
I have no idea what this question is.
So it's all-new for me, just like you in the test.
And remember you need to speak for over one minute in the exam.
If you don't speak for one minute,
the examiner will prompt you to speak a little bit more.
Are you ready?
I'm ready!
I think I'm ready.
Sending you the question...
Fantastic!
Now!
The question is: Talk about a crowded place you went to.
You should say where this place was,
why you were there,
and who you went to with this place.
You have one minute to prepare.
Great!
I'm going to talk about a festival I went to when I was about eighteen or nineteen.
I won't tell you how long ago that was.
It was a music festival and I went with a number of friends.
This festival had lots of different bands and artists from around the world.
We camped, so we stayed in a tent.
And there were probably around a hundred thousand people at this festival.
And in the test, I would probably talk more about why festivals are important.
And what people do at the festivals,
what facilities there are there.
Maybe I can talk about
tents and the fact that you spend the whole weekend without having a shower.
That could be something I talk about.
Think about in the test any places that you've been to with lots of people.
I think that's enough for me.
I just wait for Fiona to tell me...
Time's up!
Very good!
You are so good at, you know, knowing when a minute is up.
All right, your time starts now!
Allow me to talk about a festival I went to a long time ago.
I was probably about eighteen years old
and it was a celebration of the end of school.
I finished high school, and a group of friends and I went to a music festival in the UK.
And there were many bands from around the world that come and play.
There were probably about a hundred thousand people there.
And at the festival, there were different areas, different stages,
so that people could choose the type of music they wanted to listen to.
We went there because we wanted to really let our hair down.
We wanted to celebrate the end of our exams.
I don't know if you know about festivals.
But we camped intensely,
which is a great way to spend time with friends and family.
But one of the downsides is that you don't actually have a shower for a week:
Probably four or five days.
These festivals are a great way to bond and spend time with friends and family.
If you were to go to one of these festivals,
I would recommend taking a travel bag;
Making sure that you have things to wash yourself with because there are no showers.
If you enjoy different types of music, eclectic types of music,
these festivals are fantastic.
And that would be the end of my conversation.
Very good!
Again, that was very good timing.
You spoke for about one minute and twenty seconds.
Wonderful!
In the exam, the examiner might say,
"Would you go back to this festival?".
All right, and then you would talk a little bit more.
Today we'll just ask you one or two questions about this topic.
What did you like about my speaking Fiona?
And why would you give it a high score if you were an examiner?
Well, first of all, I've got to say I really liked that you weren't staring at your notes the whole time.
Well you weren't talking to the examiner, you were talking to the camera here.
But you're making a real connection with the examiner which was great.
Very important.
And this word here "stare", is not looking like this at the notes.
I would say that's one of the biggest problems for many students:
they spend all their time looking down.
Try to engage with the examiner, and pretend that you are talking to a friend.
Good, good advice Fiona.
There was something interesting that you said,
which was "let our hair down".
Maybe I can leave this explanation to you.
You have longer hair than I do.
Well, it means to sort of let loose, to relax.
To relax.
If you envisage someone taking out their ponytail and shaking their hair around.
Exactly, and I don't have much hair left.
So this is a really good idiom to talk about relaxing:
To let one's hair down, to let your hair down, to let my hair down.
Remember in the test, if you want to score above a band seven in a lexical resource which is vocabulary,
you need to be aware of some less common idiomatic expressions.
Now, you can use them inappropriately sometimes.
But if you want to get about eight,
you need to know how to use them properly and flexibly.
So in this case,
I used it properly because I wanted to say we wanted to relax; we wanted to let our hair down.
Good idiom, write it down, make sure you remember it.
How do you let your hair down?
I have a question for you Chris.
What do you mean when you say "use it flexibly"?
Ah, good.
Yeah, use language flexibly.
Ok, you need to be able to use it as naturally as possible.
For example, you could try to use an idiom but maybe mix up the word.
So "I wanted to let my hair up".
OK, you used it a little bit... You tried, and you didn't use it in the way that it was meant to be used.
A little bit inaccurately.
And flexibly would also mean putting it in a sentence without thinking about it.
It's really hard to do.
It's one of the most difficult things about English: idioms and phrasal verbs.
I really don't know how you guys do it.
You know, I'm really impressed when I hear students using idioms.
I suppose if I was doing the exam and I was a non-native speaker,
I would learn a bunch of idioms and think about which topics I could possibly use those in.
So if the topic comes up...
It's good advice, and make sure you don't just learn idioms in a list.
Because they may never be used.
You have to probably learn the most common ones.
For example, It's a piece of cake, it's really easy.
We all know that idiom.
It's a piece of cake, it's really easy.
The IELTS exam is not a piece of cake.
What other language did you hear?
There were a couple of good words I thought.
One of them was "eclectic".
Eclectic talks about a variety of something.
So a range of music.
If somebody has an eclectic taste in music,
eclectic would be an adjective which describes and a varied taste.
A wide variety of music that they like.
So at a music festival, there might be rock and roll,
there might be jazz, folk music.
Exactly.
That's what springs to mind when you said that.
And I think you have a pretty eclectic taste in music right?
I do, yeah!
I like all sorts of music.
Another word you said was "arena".
What does arena mean?
Arena is a word which means stadium or an area to watch a show.
It's often indoors,
but you could also have an arena undercover.
So at the festival I went to,
there were some tents where you went in and watched some of the shows.
I thought it was a really good answer, Chris.
And as always, you very good at speaking fluently.
Thank you very much.
Hope you learn something new from today.
Remember in your test,
think about something that happened to you.
Because this will give you a better opportunity to talk more.
The last resort:
If you can't do that, you can invent something or talk about something that one of your friends did.
Remember you don't have to answer all the questions on the card.
Wonderful! Thanks for today, Fiona!
Thanks, Chris!
Thanks to you guys and see you soon!
Bye!