how to improve IELTS Speaking Part 1 my name is Ben Worthington and in this tutorial we
are going to look at a variety of strategies you can use to expand your answers improve
your pronunciation in the exam and before the exam let's jump straight into it so the
easiest way I think to do this is to expand your answer let me give you an example so
more than likely in Part 1 the examiner is going to ask you where you're from what are
you doing in this country are you a student are you an employee are you working etc. and
it's a perfect opportunity because we know the questions or we have the rough idea of
the questions in advance so what we can do is prepare for them and we can upgrade them
so for example the teacher the examiner might ask me where are you from Ben and I'd say
I can say I'm from Manchester England or I could say I'm from Manchester home of the
current Premier League Champions Manchester City also it's the home of famous rock bands
such as Oasis Happy Mondays and a few others now can you see I've used so much more vocabulary
there I've given the examiner more reasons to score me high and also if I'm giving good
solid answers like that then I'm just making myself feel better I'm just more relaxed in
the exam because I know that I'm not shooting myself in the foot so to speak so let's move
on to the next way on how you can improve your IELTS Speaking Part 1 the first part
okay is that we must be aware that this is also a listening exam okay this might sound
a bit weird at first but stick with me it's a listening exam because you have to pay attention
to what the examiner is asking you because it's very easy especially in exam conditions
to answer a different question that you thought the examiner gave you and that's just not
allowed okay it's crazy if you do this so you need to be aware that this is also a listening
exam and this goes to Part 1 as it does to Part 2 so let me give you an example the examiner
might ask you do you prefer living here in Sydney or in Manchester my answer yes Sydney
is a great place to live I love the beaches the weather and the people can you see complete
train crash so you need to be aware in that example it was do you prefer living here in
Sydney or Manchester so here we're going to say something like obviously Manchester no
we're going to say well that's an interesting question to be honest I prefer Manchester
because I'm not familiar with the people the food I've got family there etc. or whatever
your answer is but you need to show the examiner that you have listened and you have understood
the question next one smile smiling will make you feel more confident it'll make you more
relaxed it'll make the examiner a little bit more relaxed you know compare it if you just
sat there like a piece of cardboard you know a piece of paper nothing going on it's hard
work for the examiner go in there with a pleasant smile you make her life or his life easier
and you'll feel better as well next one breathe this will make you feel more relaxed when
we're nervous we have this tendency to tighten up and it restricts our speaking whereas if
we go in there more relaxed our language is going to flow and we're going to feel better
we're going to give more honest answers it's just going to be a better experience for you
and practice this because one thing is being aware of breathing in the exam but the other
thing is actually taking this on board and doing it and the way I practice personally
is obviously I mean I'm not going to do any exams but I do like to focus on my
breathing so whenever I'm reading I try and consciously take deeper breaths just to relax
a little bit more or just when I'm in environments I try to be aware of my breathing it just
helps make me feel a little bit more relaxed I can get into the moment more focused next
one remember that the examiner is there to help you make it easier for them this goes
back to what I was saying before okay you don't want to be boring sticking much I don't want to be boring
just a person there you want to give the examiner reasons to help mark you high so avoid single
word answers you know I mean and this could be even extended to sometimes you might think
that it's inevitable but the examiner could say what is your name you say Ben where are
you from Manchester ahh terrible so the examiner can say what is your name you say Ben or Benjamin
but everybody calls me Ben yeah just little things like this it just makes it go easier
it makes the whole thing flow if you're relaxed the examiner is going to be more likely to
be relaxed as well next one go into the exam warmed up okay don't go in there not having
spoken English for three weeks or whatever go in there speak with a friend beforehand
make sure it’s a full-hour just you know full-on English conversation back and forth
on Skype with a tutor with a friend anything but go in there warmed up and this is especially
important if you're in a country that is not English-speaking if you're in I don't know
India if you're in Nepal wherever where English is not widely spoken everywhere compared to
somewhere like Australia or England then you need to take the action you need to take the
step and make a call beforehand or find somebody and just converse in English get warmed up
get pumped up and it would look a lot lot easier trust me on this one I know this and
I'm not just saying that I read some stupid article about tips I know this because I’m
speaking of the language and I know that as soon as I get back into Spain it takes me
at least a day until I can start speaking and my language starts flowing again but until
then I've got a horrible accent I sound like a foreigner and my friends are laughing at
me and so obviously we don't want the examiner to laugh at you I doubt they would but you
do want to go in there warmed up all right next one warm like when we’re warm in a
part English we also want to be warming up our social skills and this might be a bit
tricky to explain but I'll give you an example from personal experience if I'm on the computer
working all day then I go to a social event it takes me I don't know a good 20-30 minutes
until I'm sort of like relaxed and into it and I'm speaking more freely and conversation’s
more flowing and this is the mindset or the feeling that you want to be when you're going
into your speaking exam you want it to be relaxed and flowing so this is another reason
why you should warm but you want to not just get warmed up with the language but you want
to get into a talkative mood okay give the examiner more material to work with give them more
reasons to give you a higher score and that's quite important so you might want to
do a social event but just get really chatty beforehand and do the English warming up that
is especially important if you are in an environment where maybe you're not speaking that much
or maybe you're not speaking English that much and you want to give the examiner the
best example of your English and the best way to do that is to get warmed up beforehand
next one go in there with confidence and I know that confidence is an issue I have lots
of students and in the exam their level is here speaking to me their level is up here
why is this the main reason is because of their confidence they tighten up and they're
not giving the examiner a true reflection of their abilities so how do we get confident
in the exam well one you do all those steps that I told you before warming up getting
in a social mood talkative preparing your answers expanding your answers and the other
one we do is we sit – no that's the next time we visualize ourselves having a great
exam you're sitting there the examiner is warm and friendly the examiner understands
your accent likewise you understand their accent and it's all just very pleasant experience
try and get that picture of your IELTS success your IELTS successful exam get it clear in
your mind and then it's much more likely to happen I'm not going to go into it all but
you can search on YouTube for more videos about visualization and all that next one
posture sit there with your back and neck straight don't sit there like a little cocoon
and nervous okay sit there back straight neck straight head straight look at the examiner
if you've got a problem looking at them in their eyes I know this is a problem with some
students look at the space between the eyebrows now just focus on that but if you've got strong
posture then there's a TED talk about this being proven but if you've got a strong posture
it's going to be transferred into your sort of like mentality if you're sitting strong
then you're going to be perceived as strong and you're going to be acting strong okay
I'll put the TED talk in the comments which explains it much more eloquently but the basic
fact is that if you're sitting there like this as well you're going to feel more confident
you're going to act more confident and also that when you're speaking it's all going to
be like one direct channel which helps improve your delivery so if I'm like this and all
all curled and coming out like that obviously it's going to be more difficult to understand but if
I'm sitting straight shoulders back neck up and I'm looking at the examiner and smiling
then it's going to be a much more pleasant experience for the examiner for you and you're
going to feel much better now the next one understand the objective of Part 1 okay the
objective for Part 1 from the examiner's point of view is to get some basic details from
you but to make you feel but also to make you feel at ease relax you into the situation
so this is why you should be you know be that confident relaxed it’s your opportunity
to shine okay that's the best way I can put it it's your opportunity to shine it’s your
opportunity for IELTS success next one you want to get familiar with different accents
this relates back to what I said before about it being a listening exam but if you're taking
your exam for example in Bahrain and they have an examiner from Glasgow yeah it's going
to make it a bit of a challenge of course the examiner will obviously try and smooth
their accents out a little bit they're not going to be there broad glass widget they
will try and smooth it out but still even if it's smoothed out it could be a challenge
for you especially if your listening skills are not that good so what you want to do is
prepare in advance and be aware of different types of accents and this is quite easy you
know just go to YouTube put Scottish speaker or Scottish films try watching a Scottish
film Trainspotting or whatever and yeah it really will be like a baptism of fire you'd
be like whoa this is how the Scotts speak and likewise just try and get familiar with
how Canadians Welsh English whichever especially English because they usually speak faster
than what I do for example faster closed clipped and this can be a real challenge especially
if you're not living in an English-speaking country so final one if you want to get ahead and
if you want to get this exam out of the way as quickly as possible and you want to really
go into detail about all the topics I just mentioned all the tips I just mentioned put
them into practice then you might want to have a look at the online course at ieltspodcast.com
and we've got the Speaking Confidence Course there because I know from personal experience
that if a student is confident then they're already going to be perceived as a better
speaker and as they say perception is reality so this is one of the reasons why we try and
focus on confidence a lot another reason why we give a mock exam as part of the course is
so we can identify mistakes and focus on improvement by giving some valuable feedback so basically
if you want to get ahead if you want to get this IELTS out of the way have a look at the
links below and I'd love to work with you so my name is Ben Worthington have a great
day good luck with your IELTS preparation and if you've got any suggestions if you wanted
to do a video about another topic put it down in the comments and I'll try and get around
to making a video about that okay all the best and thank you for watching