Hello!
Do you know what hesitation is?
Well,
hesitation in the IELTS speaking test can be identified in two ways:
The first way is language-related hesitation.
The second is content-related hesitation.
In this short video,
I'll be explaining the difference between these two types of hesitation and which one is better.
As a native English speaker,
I find it much easier to speak at length on a particular topic than many of you,
because English is not your first language.
When I'm faced with an IELTS examiner and remember,
I've taken the test a few times,
she or he may ask me about a topic which I am not too familiar with.
For example,
and I've talked about this in a previous video.
In one of my tests,
the examiner asked me to talk about the sky.
Have you had any tests which you thought were surprising?
Tell us about them in the comments below.
What were those interesting or strange topics?
Now,
when the examiner asked me about the sky,
I was a bit taken aback.
To be taken aback means to be surprised by something.
I hadn't really prepared myself for this topic, and... so I wasn't really sure what I should say.
I think her first question was: Do you like to look at the sky?
I've been an IELTS teacher for many, many years,
and I know that you cannot just answer.
Yes, I do.
This would not score you very many marks
because you haven't shown that you can speak fluently,
or demonstrated extensive language or grammar.
So when I answered the question, I probably started with.
Uh...
yes,
I suppose I do.
I hadn't really thought about that.
Now, did you notice here that these two short sentences gave me a little time to think?
And they demonstrated different grammatical forms.
I mixed two tenses.
I suppose.
And I hadn't really thought about that.
And I had an informal and relaxed style.
Now, this hesitation is called content-related hesitation because it's about the topic,
and maybe you don't know much about it.
An examiner will notice when you have little to say and may move on to the next question.
For example:
Do you prefer to look at the sky at night or in the day?
This will give you more things to talk about.
Content-related hesitations are acceptable even at a band 9
and the band 8 actually.
It's normal to not have ideas on some topics.
These content-related hesitations are better than language related hesitations
because language-related hesitations showed the examiner that
maybe you don't know the word to describe something.
This will affect both your lexical resource mark, and your fluency, and coherence mark.
So if we go back to the question,
do you like to look at the sky?
And your answer is yes, I do.
I really like to look at the sky at night. At home, I use a...
it's the thing that I look at the stars with.
I can't remember the word in English.
Now, for those of you who are high-level speakers,
you'll know that I'm trying to use the word telescope.
The telescope is a B2 level word,
and this would boost your lexical resource mark.
Unfortunately,
because I hesitated, I paused
over this word,
the examiner is going to mark me down on my fluency and coherence mark
because I am not speaking fluently.
This is called language-related hesitation. For a band seven,
you are allowed to make some language-related hesitation.
But don't make too many pauses because
this will limit your band to a six.
If you can't remember how to say a word, or maybe it's somewhere in your brain,
rather than pausing,
try to explain it in a different way.
Here's an example:
I could say "I really enjoy looking at the sky at night and often use
a thing which my parents bought me for my birthday.
It's a special tool that when you look into the sky,
the stars look bigger".
Okay,
so you didn't use the word telescope.
But instead of hesitating,
you spoke fluently.
In summary,
content-related hesitations are better than language-related hesitations.
After all were only human.
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