In your IELTS Speaking test,
if you can’t remember or don’t know the right word to use
in your answer to a question,
what are you going to do?
If you’re not sure, keep watching
because I’m going to show you how to deal with this problem,
impress the examiner
and avoid losing marks
so you have the best chance
of getting the band score you need.
You’ll also see an example of
how an IELTS Speaking band score 6 candidate
used this strategy when she couldn’t remember
the word she needed in one of her answers,
and how you can use this strategy too.
My name’s Pete Jones,
and I use real IELTS test takers’ experiences
to help you develop strategies
for dealing with problems in the IELTS test.
If you have strategies that work,
you’re going to feel more confident in your test
because you’ll know what to do
if you face the kind of problems
that other test takers experience.
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.
One common problem you may experience
in the IELTS Speaking test
is forgetting or not knowing the vocabulary you need
once you’ve started answering a question.
The IELTS Speaking test is 11-14 minutes long
and so there’s a good chance you won’t remember or know
every word you’d like to use in your answers.
Imagine, for example, that you’re asked this question
in Part 1 of your Speaking test
and you forget or don’t know a word
that you need when giving your answer.
What’s the best strategy to use?
Well, to turn this negative into a positive
and impress the examiner,
it’s important to find another way
of saying what you want to say.
If you give up or change an answer you’ve already started,
you’re telling the examiner
that you can’t say what you wanted to say,
and this will affect your band score.
Here’s an example of an IELTS Speaking band score 6 candidate,
May from China,
finding another way to say what she wanted to say
when she forgot the word she needed
to explain what she knew about one of her neighbours.
Which word do you think she forgot
and how well do you think she explained it?
I know that there is an old lady living next door,
and she's quite ... she's quite ... cl...
... tiny ... tiny ... I'm sorry.
I mean she clean up his backyard very frequently.
As you’ve just seen,
May forgot the word ‘tidy’,
and said ‘tiny’ at first,
but then explained what she meant by saying that
her neighbour cleaned up her backyard regularly,
and she did this without a long hesitation in her speaking.
May’s explanation of the word ‘tidy’
is an example of what’s called ‘paraphrase’
in the official band score descriptors
for vocabulary in Speaking,
and you need to be able to do this successfully
to get a band score 6 or 7 or higher.
Now, you may be thinking that paraphrasing
means using different vocabulary in your answers
to the words the examiner uses in his or her questions,
but this is not what is meant by paraphrasing
in the IELTS Speaking descriptors.
In the descriptors,
paraphrasing means using another word or words
to say what you want to say
when you don’t know or can’t remember the right word.
To paraphrase successfully in the IELTS Speaking test,
you’ll need to use vocabulary with a similar meaning
to the word you wanted to use,
for example 'neat' instead of 'tidy',
use vocabulary with a more general meaning,
for example 'organised' instead of 'tidy',
or illustrate the word in some way
like May did when she forgot the word 'tidy'
and said that her neighbour cleans up her backyard regularly.
You can’t do what you may usually do in other conversations
and check the translation on your phone.
If, like May, you realise you need to use this strategy
after using a word that wasn’t what you meant,
you can start your paraphrase by saying ‘I mean ...’
and then use other words to say what you wanted to say.
I know that there is an old lady living next door,
and she's quite ... she's quite ... cl...
... tiny ... tiny ... I'm sorry.
I mean she clean up his backyard very frequently.
So, using the strategy of paraphrasing
when you don’t know or can’t remember the right word
can help you improve your IELTS Speaking band score.
If you need to paraphrase after using a wrong word,
you can explain what you meant by saying ‘I mean...’.
If you need some thinking time
and want to avoid hesitating for too long,
you can say ‘What’s the word?’
or ‘What’s the word I’m looking for?’
while you’re thinking of how to explain what you want to say.
One way to improve at this strategy
is to practice explaining in English what words mean.
For example,
if you wanted to talk about an ‘elderly neighbour’
or ‘your next-door neighbour’
but can’t remember the words ‘elderly’ or ‘next-door’,
how would you paraphrase them?
I’d love to hear in the comments section 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!