Hi everyone! Imm Luke an expert Duolingo English Test teacher
and today we're going to talk about the speaking tasks,
specifically the independent or the extended speaking task
where you have to talk about a topic for around 90 seconds.
And you have to do this three times in the test.
You also have to describe a picture, that's a different task and if you want
to find out more information about that hit this card here. But this video is all
about the extended speaking task where you've got to talk about a topic for
around 90 seconds. Usually the topics are pretty simple
things like work, study, music, art, etc.
But being able to talk about one of these topics for 90 seconds fluently
is quite challenging, so in today's video i'm going to give you some top tips to
help you with this task. But first let's take a look at what
you've got to do exactly. So these are the different types of
speaking tasks you have to do in the Duolingo Test
one task is describing a picture. I did a long video on how to do this well
find the link in the description. Then you have
three independent speaking tasks. Two of these are introduced to you with
written prompts and one is with an aural prompt. Aural just
means through listening. The written prompt looks like this. You
have between 20 and 30 seconds to prepare and you
just click that record now button at the bottom when
you're ready. It says that you should speak for at
least 30 seconds about the questions below
and while that's true I highly recommend that you speak for longer.
So in this task you actually have 90 seconds to answer this question
and like I mentioned I strongly recommend that you speak for at least
80 seconds because at the end of the day this is an English test where you're
supposed to show off your English. So the more you talk the more chance you
have to use better vocabulary or advanced grammatical structures
both of which will help you with your overall score.
So definitely keep this in mind try to speak for at least 80 seconds.
So when you're here after 30 seconds this next
box in the corner will light up. So you can click that as soon as you finished.
So that was the written prompt but you also have an oral prompt this is a lot
harder. So, what happens here is that you
actually get given a question or a prompt
through listening so you have to listen and respond correctly to the question
you hear. Of course this tests both your listening
and speaking skills. Again for this task you have 90 seconds
to speak and you can replay the question up to
three times. Do if you want to listen to it again,
just click this speaker button. But remember you only have three times
to do this and when you've answered the question fully
just click next and you can go on to the next question.
So just to remind you you have three extended speaking tasks
in this test two with a written prompt and one with an
aural prompt but the way you answer should be the same.
The oral prompt is just there to test your listening skills,
and to check how well you respond to a listening question.
Okay so now let's take a look at my top tips for answering this task
in the best way possible.
Okay my top tip number one is to answer the prompts so on test day when you're
doing this task you'll get a prompt like this. Talk about
a book you recently read this is the main topic and then you'll
have four questions to guide you through your answer.
I highly recommend that you go through all of these questions
because talking for 90 seconds without these prompts can be very challenging.
So you can just simply go question to question to question to question
and answer in them with lots of detail and that should take you to 90 seconds.
I've seen a lot of teachers talking about these prompts and how
students should just ignore them and talk about their own story,
but to be honest i think it's much easier just to answer these questions.
I know that's a really simple tip but sometimes the simple tips are the best
so be sure to answer those prompts. Tip number two is to remember to always
answer the questions but then expand on your answer again
remember that this is an english proficiency test
so you have to show off your english so you shouldn't just answer the question
in a simple way. You should answer and expand. Wo how can
you expand? Well you can elaborate. That means talk
more about your answer. You can give your opinion or you can
give someone else's opinion and you can also give some examples. So i
know this is another simple tip but you'd be surprised how many students
just give a simple answer and they think that's enough. but it's
not remember you always have to give a simple answer
but then expand on it because you want to show the examiner or in this case the
computer that you're really good at English.
Remember answer and expand answer and expand. So let me
show you an example.
so let's say this is our topic talk about a book that you read recently
and the prompts are what was the title what was it about
how did you first hear of it what did you like
or dislike about it so for the first question what was the title
this is an example of how you can answer a simple question like this but expand
on your answer to show off your english so this is my example a book that i've
read recently which really inspired me was called
surely you're joking mr feynman by the famous physicist dr fireman
this book is a collection of personal stories both hilarious and
thought-provoking from dr fyman's life so let's take a look at this the
question what was the title is a really simple question
and a very simple answer would just be a book that i've read recently was
called surely a joke in mr feynman if i just stop there i'm only answering
the question but i'm not elaborating so as you can
see in this example all of the parts in green are the parts
which i elaborated remember elaborate means to give more
information so the parts that i elaborated i said
which really inspired me and then i added a little bit more
detail about the book so this is a very simple way to
elaborate about this topic the book you can talk about the author
or about the genre of the book and what were your reactions to the book
so this is a good way of expanding the simple question
what was the title now let's take a look at the second question
which is what was it about so this is also an example answer and again
i elaborate it so let me show you this book is mainly about
all the life lessons that dr fyman learnt in his amazing life
for instance do things that you love as best as you can
as this book is a collection of stories from his life rather than a novel
it doesn't really have a plot each chapter covers one important part of his
life such as his time at university or the
time when he met albert einstein which in my opinion was
the most fascinating chapter so in this section in order to elaborate
i gave examples i said for instance do things that you
love as best as you can and at the bottom i said such as his
time at university or the time when he met albert einstein
so here such as provides examples to what i said earlier
each chapter covers one important part of his life
so as you can see from these two adding examples is a great and easy way to
elaborate then the last part which is in purple is
a way to elaborate by showing your opinion
there are lots of different phrases you can use to share your opinion
in my opinion is the simplest one but you could also say
as far as i'm concerned or in my point of view
these are just some examples so i hope this showed you some good ways to expand
on your simple answers now let's take a look at tip number
three which is transition words using transition words
will help your answer to sound more fluent and more coherent
and there are lots of different transition words you can use
if you want to move on to the next question
it's a good idea to use one of these transition words you can say
okay turn into the next question moving on to
question three or as for question three these are simple and smooth ways to
transition from question to question you can also use these transition words
when you are given your answer so you can signpost your ideas by saying
first second third or firstly secondly thirdly
when you want to give more information you can say what's more
furthermore or moreover and when you're about to finish your answer you can say
finally also if you forgot to mention something important
but would like to mention it at the end you can say
one more thing i'd like to talk about is and then talk about your idea
so remember it's important to use transition words like these
because it'll make your answer a lot more smooth and make your answer sound a
lot more organized so practice using these okay moving on
to my final tip which is tip number four this tip is very useful and it is to
look out for question triggers so what is a
question trigger well different questions have words
which require a certain type of answer so here are six
common questions you might see on this speaking task on the duolingo english
test and the words in green are the trigger
they are triggers because they should trigger
a certain answer or a certain response and that response usually has a specific
grammar structure you should use so let's take a look the first one how
did you first hear of this book so of course the word did is a past
tense so when you answer this question you
have to respond using one of the past tenses
so the past simple the past continuous past perfect
used to that one's quite straightforward the next question will you read a
similar book this one refers to the future
so again you have to respond using one of the correct future tenses
will going to the present continuous the future perfect or the future
continuous be sure to use the correct tense for the
idea that you are talking about now they get a little bit more tricky so
this question is quite common how long have you been doing something
for this you need to respond using the present perfect continuous
the present continuous is have plus being plus a verb with ing
and we use this to talk about an ongoing action
that started in the past so if a question
says how long have you been doing something you should respond like this
i've been doing this for three years four years or whatever but you have to
respond using the correct tense so pay attention to the question four is
particularly difficult and a lot of students lose points by
answering this question wrong this question is a hypothetical question
they usually come in the word form so would you recommend
this book so to answer this correctly you have to
respond in a hypothetical way so you could say something like yes i
would recommend this book because i thought it was really inspiring so if
a question has wood in it you shouldn't answer using
the simple past so for this question would you recommend
the book to someone you shouldn't say yes i did or yes i
will you should respond in a hypothetical way
for example yes i would recommend this book because
i found it very interesting or no i don't think i would recommend
this book because it wasn't very good you could also use if sentences here too
because if sentences are hypothetical so a
simple answer would be sure if someone asked me about this book
i would recommend it so definitely pay attention for the wood
questions and the last two are opinion questions
for example why questions or what do you or what did you like or dislike
about something these questions expect you to share your
opinion so you should use opinion phrases like
in my opinion from my point of view as far as i'm
concerned let's see how this is used in a real
example so let's use the same prompt as earlier
talk about a book that you read recently and we'll answer this question how did
you first hear of it so i could say turn into the next
question the first time i heard of this book was
on a podcast where two people were talking about the
most influential books that they've ever read even though i
hadn't heard of dr fyman then the way they talked about him was
amazing so as soon as i finished listening to the
podcast i went straight out to the bookstore to buy the book
so as you can see here the question how did you first hear of it
required an answer using the past tense but i started off by saying turning to
the next question remember this was a transition word this
is a good way to move from one question to the next one
and then throughout my answer i use the different past tenses
hurt is a simple past tense we're talking about
is the past continuous hadn't heard was the past
perfect and talked finished and went are the past simple definitely practice
using all the different past tenses in a story
like this because it'll help you get a higher score in grammatical accuracy
and complexity okay so those were some of my top tips for answering the 90
second extended speaking on the duolingo english test
just to remind you they were answer the prompts
answer and expand use transition words and look out for question triggers
and now it's your turn i'm going to give you a question prompt and
90 seconds to answer this is a real question from the duolingo english test
definitely try to answer this question through speaking for 90 seconds
but if you want me to give you some feedback write your answer below in the
comments and i'll check okay are you ready let's go
so how did you find that 90 seconds is quite long isn't it
but i hope my top tips helped you to answer this question fluently
and with a lot more information in order to help you get a better score
okay and that's it from me today thank you for watching i hope this was helpful
and i'll see you next time take care