In your IELTS Speaking test,
if you notice you make a mistake
with vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation,
what are you going to do?
If you’re not sure whether you should correct yourself or not,
keep watching
because I’m going to show you when you should
and when you shouldn't.
You’ll also see an example of
how an IELTS Speaking band score 8.0 candidate
corrected himself quickly
after realising he’d made a grammar mistake,
and how you can do this too
and still get a high IELTS band score.
My name’s Pete Jones,
and I share the most effective strategies to use
when dealing with problems in the IELTS test.
Using test strategies that work
will help you perform to your best in the test
and give the best chance
of getting the IELTS band score you need.
And I’ll be talking about more of these strategies in other videos
so, if you’re new to my channel,
make sure you subscribe below.
Now
I’m sure that at some point during your IELTS Speaking test,
you’re going to know you’ve made a mistake
with vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation.
You might realise that you’ve used a word
with the wrong meaning,
that you’ve missed out a word in a sentence,
or that you didn’t pronounce a word clearly.
Imagine, for example, that you’re asked this question
in Part 3 of your Speaking test
and you realise you’ve made a grammar mistake
when giving your answer.
Is the best strategy to correct yourself or to ignore the mistake?
Well, if you know how to correct the mistake
and you can correct it quickly,
the best strategy is to correct yourself
and continue with your answer.
When you correct yourself quickly,
the examiner won't count the mistake as a mistake
and it won’t affect your IELTS band score.
Here’s an IELTS Speaking band score 8 candidate,
William from China,
correcting himself
when he missed out a word in part of his answer.
Which word did he miss out
and how quickly did he correct himself?
You have to very patient ...
... to be very patient.
You have to very patient ...
... to be very patient.
As you’ve just seen,
William initially missed out the verb ‘be’ in the sentence
‘You have to be very patient’
but then corrected himself
without a long hesitation in his speaking.
And, if you look at the official IELTS Speaking band score descriptors,
you’ll see that you can make self corrections like this
and still get a band score 7 or 8 or higher
for your spoken fluency.
Now, what if you notice you’ve made a mistake
but don't know how to correct it?
What if you’ve already made and corrected a lot of mistakes?
What if you’re not very fluent in English and speak slowly?
Well, in each of these cases,
the best strategy is probably to ignore the mistake
and continue speaking
because otherwise it might affect your spoken fluency
or your answer may not be easy to follow.
Here’s an IELTS Speaking band score 5 candidate,
Hanbin from South Korea,
correcting himself when he used a word in the wrong way.
Which word did he make a mistake with
and how quickly did he correct it?
The secondly ...
Oh no ... The second ...
The secondly ...
Oh no ... The second ...
Hanbin’s mistake was using the article ‘the’
in front of the word ‘secondly’
when he was introducing his second point,
but there was a noticeable hesitation
before he corrected it to ‘the second’
and then another hesitation before he continued.
Hesitations like this are one reason
he got a band 5 for his speaking,
and it would have been better for him to ignore the mistake
and continue talking.
So, if you notice you make a mistake in your Speaking test,
correct yourself quickly if you can,
or ignore it and continue with your answer
if you don’t know how to correct it,
if you’ve already corrected a lot of mistakes
or if you can’t correct it quickly.
What mistakes do you make that you can correct quickly?
I’d love to hear in the comments below.
If you want to learn other strategies
for dealing with problems in the IELTS test,
check out my other strategy videos
and hit that subscribe button and notification bell
so you don’t miss the next one.
Remember, I teach everything I know
so you’re in the right place to learn!