good morning Aubrey good morning Jessica how are you I'm wonderful I had my coffee and I'm
RAR and to go that would be a good thing to say in speaking part one like fun expression it would
be it' be fun it'd be easy in speaking part one guys just when they ask you that first question
just be like by the way I am so excited for this exam I'm rare in to go anyway my hometown I love
that it actually comes from a horse when a horse like rares up on two legs cuz it's so excited to
like run so you say a horse is raring and but we use it for ourselves if we're just really ready
and excited we'll say I'm raring to go that's awesome that's awesome okay guys so we have
oh my gosh we have so many tips for you today um we really just brainstormed the heck out of this
question how to be natural on the aisle speaking test um so this is based on aist listener question
this was actually asked on Spotify guys if you're listening to us on Spotify this is a great place
to ask us a question um Jen Jenny I or Jen I maybe uh recently posted this question for us
Aubrey can you read that please yes she said one of my biggest problems regarding I speaking is
sounding natural since I have learned a lot about grammar do you have any suggestion about that I
love this I'm really excited to dive into sort of the relationship between what we're focusing
on when we're learning and whether that helps us or keeps us from sounding natural on teste
totally there are so many ways that we acquire language early on that are necessary and that do
serve you early on in your language studies but as you progress and get more advanced in your
English those old ways of learning stop helping you you know what I mean so you have to you have
to recognize that and think about that we can't stick with that comfortable grammar worksheet
wrote memorization way of learning that helped us in the beginning because it stops helping after a
while it actually hinders or stops your progress yes I feel you Jenny when I was taking French in
high school this was me I was studying so much grammar but then I never really transitioned to
where I could be pushing my other skills better so I got to um France and I was you know I was so
excited to being exchange student and I understood nothing I couldn't communicate at all and I'm like
if you want me to conjugate any verbs I could do that but I couldn't speak it's so frustrating 100%
that exact thing happened to me with Spanish I got A's in high school Spanish I moved to Spain when I
was 18 couldn't understand a word could understand nor could I say anything right I certainly would
not have been able to pass the I speaking exam at that point it's like it's a whole different
ball game to be able to get to that level of fluency where you can comfortably speak on
lots of different topics and that's where you like you were saying Jess you have to transition from
you know really studying grammar and a lot of the more um specific things you're learning and then
as you get to that intermediate level advanced level when you're studying for ults we have to
switch it up there's a lot that we have to do in order to be able to speak like a native in order
to speak naturally on the I speaking exam exactly so we do have seven tips for you guys today on
how to sound more natural when you're speaking English on the exam and in life um but we want
to remind you that this is the whole goal of all ears English right I energy this podcast we are a
sister podcast of allers English and the business English podcast and we all have the same motto
connection not Perfection and this exactly is what we're talking about right you want to connect with
the examiner with the words you're using sound natural and not focus on Perfection because that
ruins fluency absolutely we also want to share a recent episode over on the allers English podcast
20192 Michelle and Lindsay did a really great one called I've created a monster this would be
such a great phrase to use on Iz if you're talking about a friend or someone that you've introduced
to something and now it's all they do you say h I've created a monster there's so much great
vocabulary and expressions over there so make sure you're also following the allers English
podcast definitely definitely um and this 2092 I've created a monster this is a perfect example
of how Listening to allers English will help you on a this vocabul vocabulary they're sharing um
is totally native not from a textbook and it would be perfect for speaking part one and part two and
they e there's there's uh communication strategies as well like in that episode they talk about how
we can use that vocabulary to tell stories to connect and in part two you have to tell a story
G it all comes together exactly right so make sure you're following both both podcasts and we are now
going to dive in seven tips that sounds like a lot we'll keep them pretty brief but there are quite a
few things these are all about the fluency score that's what we're focusing on today your fluency
and coherence score for I speaking is you know with the student writing like I'm having a hard
time sounding natural that's really the main score that would be affected by that exactly exactly um
and if you follow these tips to relax to be more fluent it will help all the other scores at the
same time right because none of these scores exist in a vacuum so let's get into this tip
number one so the main thing that ruins fluency usually is when students have too many ums and
O when they're hesitating when they're silent repeating themselves using us and ums that is
the main thing that ruins fluency scores so what are two things we can do to uh improve just that
first of all read out loud right to get that Cadence to get that feeling of naturally saying
two to three sentences several World words without filling with a um and right you have to break that
habit if you have that in English native speakers can do that and do do that but on the I exam it
will lower this fluency score y 100% um and then also mimicking you know listening to podcasts
like this uh listen for 5 to 10 seconds pause repeat out loud you can do this with movies TV
shows videos even just little Instagram videos you could watch it and repeat out loud but mimicking
guys uh that is one of the best ways to improve your fluency to increase your confidence it's
just practicing sound fluent that's all it is exactly our second one is not focusing on grammar
especially you know someone like Jenny who wrote this in if you've studied a ton of grammar and
you feel very confident with lots of different verb tenses we've talked about this in the past
but you may make the mistake students sometimes make of trying to force yourself to use more
difficult verb tenses like you're trying to bring in you know present perfect continuous when it's
not the verb tense that's needed for what you're saying you're actually going to hurt your grammar
scores and your fluency scores because there is always one correct verb tense you can't like be
creative and try to show your fancy grammar you're going to end up saying it incorrectly and you also
might be pulling from your fluency because you're not instead sharing really interesting details and
showing how fluent you are and yeah and anytime a student is reaching for complicated grammar
or verb tenses or a student is reaching for or vocabulary we can tell you know Aubrey and
I can tell examiners can tell because it does interrupt fluency because you're not focused on
communicating connecting right you're not focused on communicating you're focused on this specific
idiom and jamming it into your answer you're focused on this specific complex structure and
trying to jam it into your answer so you hesitate and or you pause while you're searching and then
you're saying it and you're kind of stuttering over it because it's not a natural part of what
you're saying you know like it's not real communication and it ruins fluency exactly
it can make your everything really disjointed so you want to totally avoid that yes you need
to learn grammar yes you know this is a but if we're too focused thinking about our grammar on
teste then there's a lot for you to think about during the Iz exam you want to sort of trust that
you've got the grammar down for the most part and be think thinking about sharing details lots of
details not repeating yourself sharing that great vocabulary the students that we've had on the show
and students in the course who have scored really well on speaking and talked to us afterwards they
never say like Oh I thought about grammar a lot and I did well or Oh I thought about vocabulary
a lot and I did well no never zero times does that happen they're always like oh I had fun I enjoyed
my speaking that's what they say it's so true right I shared a story that actually was really
fun for me to tell and it was great yeah that's so true and they enjoy the speaking exam they allow
themselves to relax and just share interesting details they get the highest scores it's about
connection and in this case communication right but it is connection through communication so um
our third tip guys is to slow down um I say this to students all the time we get nervous
we speak too fast we we end up making mistakes we end up repeating ourselves um we don't have
time to think of interesting details and examples because we're speaking too fast and the point is
speaking too fast does ruin fluency and it doesn't sound natural if you guys slow down it sounds more
natural case and point um I worked with a student recently and I was telling her to introduce part
two in a specific way say how you feel about the card and she did but she said it so fast I almost
missed it like it's not how a native speaker would say it you know what I mean so I'll give
you a quick example um when you introduce part two you can say something like um oh my gosh it's so
crazy that I got this topic about a movie because honestly I legit just last night watched the best
movie and it's slow there's Rhythm you know if you say that too fast it it's not natural yes
exactly I feel like I I also say this to students so often and I think they're often surprised when
I let them know that speaking very fast doesn't boost your score in any way examiners are not
giving you bonus points for speaking very quickly that doesn't prove fluency and it almost always
leads to monotone because you can't vary your tone you can't emphasize certain words when
you're speaking so quickly that you just there's no room to do that right so like you said kit ends
up just lowering scores all right so here is a major tip for speaking part one guys to increase
fluency start your answers with informal fillers naturally we don't go straight into an answer like
right away you know we use informal fillers so if the question is what do you do in your free
time I'm not going to just all of a sudden say I like to go to the gym and read books you know
I'm going to say oh wow I wish I had had more free time um what do I do I well I go to the
gym three days a week I um I like watching movies um and it's October now so I get to watch all the
scary gory stuff that I want you know it's it's more natural to have a filler at the beginning
absolutely and you have to realize that you have to practice saying this if you have a list of like
15 fillers that you could say on test day even if you have them memorized if you haven't practiced
answering sample answers and using those fillers when you get stuck or to begin your answer it
won't necessarily be very fluent and and Native just like that you know um to show that fluency
with it but if you practice them in advance then you know them well enough that you don't have to
think about them and you can actually think of like how do I want to answer this question while
you say you're filler and you're buying yourself so much time exactly exactly um all right so the
next example is to use more personal examples in your answers this is for part one and part three
mostly um it gives context right it um it is fluent and natural to give details and examples
about what you're saying you know think about just a normal daily conversation if uh let's say you
meet uh let's say there's a new cooworker right that comes to your office and you want to get to
know them you're like hey what are you doing your free time and they're like um I read books see you
like what no we give context we give details and that's that's literally something you're graded
on for fluency right being able to um expand on your ideas so use personal examples give as many
details as you can in speaking part one and three yes I love that you're mentioning part three here
because that's where students sometimes feel like can I give personal examples this is about Urban
Crime absolutely whether you're saying that you don't experience crime in your city or you do
share about your personal experience it's all very much related and any details you can give
are going to show your fluency vocabulary is going to naturally come out of it as you share
those details so yes share personal examples that that's such a good example because I could see a
student getting a question about urban crime and saying I'm not too familiar with this topic and
not having anything to say but no like you're an adult you live in a city you have lived in
many cities probably talk about crime where you've lived if it feels very safe and there's no crime
awesome say that that totally answers the question fantastic give details um all right so uh next tip
guys do not use pre-prepared answers especially in speaking part one you know that you're going
to be asked about your hometown your work your school um don't don't write down possible answers
memorize them and then say them on the test it's not natural right remember we're talking
about how to sound natural which is fluent right same same today um examiners can tell if you have
pre-prepared and memorized this answer it's often something like describing your hometown and a
student will be like my hometown has approximately 350,000 people that live inside its borders its
neighboring cities are such and such and such and such um the diversity is noticeable as 35% of the
population is from the Ukraine or whatever like that's not real nobody talks like that so again
that does not sound natural or fluent yeah you have to think about the examiner is looking for
you to speak in a way that a native speaker would speak if they were asked this question if a friend
asked them or if some right in normal conversation and so if you've memorized something ahead of time
that has really impressive vocabulary it's going to be extremely difficult to say that in a way
that is native and natural the way you would actually speak to a friend so it's much better
to like learn a few different idioms and some high-scoring vocabulary that's very versatile that
you could use on lots of different answers and be ready like you have this as like weapons for
how to fit them into all these different questions spend time doing that instead of memorizing whole
answers totally I mean it is way more useful just to try to answer a hundred different questions out
loud in a week you know every morning answer 10 questions out loud or something different
questions not the same ones because you need to develop your spontaneity your confidence
your fluency that's the goal not like one perfect answer that won't help your score anyway exactly
right so what's the last this last one yes this is we highly recommend that you introduce part
two in an interesting way it's very tempting for students to always start it with I am now going
to talk about blank or maybe reading the task card like just restating what the topic is yeah
there's so many better more interesting ways that will Engage The Examiner right away you'll have
a chance to use interesting intonation for that pronunciation score and show your fluency I love
when students say something like I cannot wait to tell you about and then my friend or the thing I
just bought whatever there they've been asked to describe it like gets me excited they're clearly
excited and just try and say that in monotone it's very diff difficult right totally it's
going to for it's going to help push you to use interesting intonation yeah just be honest say say
the first thought that came to your head when you saw the topic card you know like honestly when I
saw this card I panicked I was freaked out because because I really don't want to describe a museum
but okay I have to so here we go exactly right and yeah the example I gave you're like I cannot
wait to say that would be really strange if you end up talking about urban crime or something I
don't know something that you should not really be excited about so yeah that's a good point what's
first pops into your head when you see it right share that with the examiner I can't wait to tell
you about the time that my purse got stolen wait to tell you about the time I was mugged on the
street all right guys so leave us a question on Spotify or you can email us support alls
english.com and uh maybe we will base a whole episode around your question all right guys
thank you for listening and we'll be back next week awesome see you next time bye [Music] bye