Hi everybody, my name is Hridhaan and I welcome each one of you with a very big heart on Let's
Talk. In this series of IELTS, I have brought to you the content that's most pertinent to
your needs and requirements. It's on speaking, listening, writing and reading. The first
series that I have for you is on speaking and in this, everything is synchronized that
will help you understand speaking part better and take the test in a much more confident
and fluent manner. The first lesson that I have for you today is on part 1, speaking
part 1 and the topic is, ‘most commonly asked questions and how to answer them’.
Here are the top six questions, I have sat for IELTS three times in my life in so far
and in those three times, I have seen that the examiner tends to ask same questions most
of the times repeatedly and this is what I have brought in for you in this lesson, top
six questions that I've seen candidates being asked all the time, time and again, I talk
to my students and these are the same questions in part 1. But before we start this lesson,
we need to understand what is part 1, part 1 is about introduction wherein the examiner
and the candidate sit together and the examiner asks candidates certain questions, personal
questions, general personal questions related to the candidate and these questions are here,
the top six questions and not just this, but certain topics that are related to part 1,
in the same series when it comes to the examiner asking certain personal questions are here
down below. So in this lesson, we will start with these questions and also talk about how
to answer these questions. Let's get started with question number one, question number
one is, “could you tell something about yourself, please?” Now this lesson is not
only for IELTS students but something that is quite generally asked in our daily life
to us time and again. So this is something that we can use, not just for the exam but
in our daily lives as well. How to answer this question? This question is about introduction,
you have to introduce yourself, you have to tell the examiner about yourself, so how do
you start to answer this question? There is a logical pattern, now to answer questions
like this, people start to fumble, they're like, oh my god, should I start with my hobbies
first, should I start with the job that I do first, should I start with my qualifications
first… Now I'm going to tell you something very, very interesting and important, to answer
a question that is related to your introduction, you always follow this format that I'm going
to tell you and this format is very, very interesting, to answer this question we always
start with number 1, our qualifications, because in our life, the first thing that came was
qualifications. Now if you're a student, you can talk about where you completed your secondary
and higher secondary qualification, but if you are somebody who's self-employed of somebody
who's working, then you can start simply with your bachelor's or your master's qualification,
the latest one basically and then talk about your experience once you're done with your
qualifications, the next thing that you should talk about is your experience. There's a lesson
that I've created on using language in terms of talking about on speaking part 1 and speaking
part 2, so do tune to that lesson as well because that will help you understand the
language you should use, to talk about your qualifications, experience, etc. etc. The
next logical step in terms of talking about your introduction, after experience is your
hobbies, you can talk about your hobbies, what you like to do in your free time. Now
when it comes to introduction, there are a couple of things that you talk about, but
one thing that you do need to remember in mind is the fact that it is going to be a
little long and the longer it is, the better because it talks about not just your confidence
but the content knowledge and also the fluency of the language. Next one in the list that
you're going to be talking about is, your future plans. After qualifications you've
spoken about your experience because you do the job after your qualifications in most
of the cases and then after that you’re digressing from the topic a little bit and
you're getting a little more personal. You're talking about what you like to do in your
spare time, free time, leisure time. After that it is optional but I think I like to
do it always, whenever I'm introducing myself to everyone, you must have seen in my first
video as well on Let's Talk, that I spoke about not just my qualifications but also
my future plans as well that I'd like to, that I have, so that is what I'm talking about
here. You can also talk about your future plans, which is an optional thing but I think
it's a very important pointer, because it just goes on to talk about a very important
thing about yourself and that is, you're not somebody who is only in present but you have
a vision to your life, you have thought about yourself as to what exactly you want to do
in times to come in your life and future plans basically talk about that. For example, let
me quickly introduce myself to each one of you, “Hi, my name is, Hridhaan”, if I
were to introduce myself on IELTS speaking part one how would I I'd start like this,
“Hi, my name is, Hridhaan, I'm a CELTA certified and a TESOL certified teacher of English,
I have a worked internationally and domestically, I worked in countries like Canada Germany
Poland and working domestically in India, hobbies, well to be honest I like to shop,
I love shopping, future plans, what would I like to do in my future, I just simply say
that in the future, I'd like to be at a managerial position of whatever I'm working at, hypothetically
basically speaking, so in the next 10 years I see there are a lot of opportunities that
are going to come, practical situation and I want to excel at all of them and be a better
person and see myself at managerial position in any organization that I work with”. So
this is my complete introduction that is how you answer a complete introduction question
in a logical sequence. Let's now move to the second question, I hope you've now understood
how to answer a question that is related to introduction, following these four steps…
first, your qualification, then your experience, hobbies and finally your future plan and this
makes a solid answer to an introduction question, I hope you have understood this, let's move
it to the second question, “could you describe your hometown?” This is a very common question
that you'd see on a lot of websites and also in a lot of books as well, Cambridge book,
Longman book, etc. and this becomes very pertinent for us to answer, because this question is
very commonly asked and we should know how to talk about it. First of all you need to
understand, what is your hometown? The city that you're currently living in or the city
that you were born in? The city that you were born is basically the place that you come
from and is your hometown. Now when it comes to describing your hometown, how would you,
a lot of people start to fumble again, so how would you describe that? There is a logical
sequence for that as well, in this case, first of all you can start talking about maybe the
environment, does it have a lot of trees, does it have a lot of pollution? After that
you can start talking about maybe the people around you, the neighborhood and the neighbors.
One thing that we need to understand here is, the logical sequence, the first is, the
atmosphere, you can start talking about the atmosphere, is it a clean city, polluted city,
etc. etc., climatic conditions, after that you can start talking about your neighbors,
and then after that you can also start talking about your neighborhood. Now a lot of you
must be wondering what is the difference between neighbors and neighborhood, neighbor means
the people that live around you, neighborhood primarily means the market that is around
the area that you live in. So that is the difference between neighbors and neighborhood,
so you can start talking about the climatic conditions maybe, the atmosphere, after that
you can start talking about how your neighbors were or are, and then you can talk about the
neighborhood, what are the markets in the area, the malls, the places, the fun activities
that people can do in your hometown. So that is how you answer a question related to hometown.
Let's now move on to the third question, “Could you describe the house that you live in?”
Now what we need to understand, is it the house that I was born in, or the house that
I live in currently? It is the house that I live in in present time, currently. So how
do I describe this question? Because this question is about describing it, when it comes
to describing your house, you can talk about the number of floors that building has, or
is it a standalone, a bungalow that does not have a lot of floors, it's just the ground
floor and that is all. So you can talk about the number of floors. You can also talk about
the number of rooms that are there in the house, you can talk about a number of rooms,
you can also talk about a lot of other things that might as well just come to your mind
at that very moment, but what we need to remember is, it is not a question that you can answer
in one or two sentences, it is a question that you have to describe, so a lot of things
can be considered, the number of floors that it has, if it has any specialty as well, does
it have a Jacuzzi, a swimming pool, etc. etc. So a lot of these things can as well be considered
in mind, when it comes to describing that house. But make sure that you do not answer
the question in just one or two sentences. You have to think about the ideas there and
then and describe it by using, the number of floors, number of rooms and if that house
has any specialties, does it have a big terrace, etc. Let's now move on to the fourth question
in the list and that is, “What do you do in your free time?” This is a question that
is related to hobbies. Now if you've already answered a question that is related to hobbies
in the introduction, that's absolutely alright. In case you miss answering hobbies in the
introduction, the examiner will ask a separate question, which is one of the most common
questions that they ask of, “the things that you do in your free time”. So make
sure again you do not answer this question in one or two sentences, you have to elaborate,
you have to expand and elucidate your answer as much as possible. For example if you say
that, “I like to shop” and that is all, full stop, no! You have to add a lot more
other information to that. For example, you can talk about, what are the places that you
go to shop most of the times, what do you like shopping the most, are these clothes,
groceries, etc. etc. So remember that it is not, we’re not expected to answer these
questions in one sentences, we are expected to expand the answers of these questions as
much as possible. So when it comes to talking about hobbies, do not just say, ‘I like
to shop’, no, no! This this is not working, you have to talk about, shop what, shop where,
shop when, shop how, all of these questions are very important. So the strategy that you
can use to answer these short questions is, five W's and one H. Five W's and one H. You
can talk about, what you shop, how you like to shop, where you shop and when you shop
and who do you shop with, most importantly and all of this will expand you answer very,
very naturally and you will have a very solid answer to any question not just a ‘hobbies’
question but any question for that matter. But the important point to remember here is,
to not to answer questions, in one sentences. I hope you have understood how to answer questions
related to hobbies or any other thing alike using the five W's, one H strategy. Let's
now move on to the next one, “How many people are there in your family?” Now, what we
need to understand is, questions like, ‘what do you do in your free time’ and questions
like, ‘how many people are there in your family’ could be answered in one word as
well and sentence as well, but what we need to understand about this important question
is, again as I said in the previous sentence, expansion. Now, ‘how many members are they
in your family’, one person might as well say, ‘five’, another person will say,
‘I have five members in my family’, the third person will say, ‘well, we are a five
member family, I've got my parents, I've got my two sisters and myself and I think it's
a nuclear family, little family, we enjoy breakfast together, we make sure that we have
at least one meal a day together”, this is the third answer, which do you think was
the perfect answer out of these three? In my opinion the third one was the perfect answer,
because it has expanded, it answers the question and the rest of the details also in the questions
are related to the question only. I'm not talking about I'm not digressing from the
topic. So make sure that as you answer the question, especially questions related to
your family, expand and keep the answer related to the topic only, which is, about your family.
Let's now move to the last question in the list and that is, “Could you talk about
your job or education?” Again, like hobbies, like your free time, if you've not spoken
about your jobs or let's say this study, your education in your introduction, it's your
opportunity to now talk about it. Now it's also a good idea to not script these answers,
what you can definitely do is, choose nice vocabulary, a ready-made vocabulary that you're
going to be using as you answer these questions. For example, if you're talking about two qualifications,
‘I am CELTA certified, subsequently I went on to do TESOL’, I'm using the word ‘subsequently’,
now this word, this very word will raise my marks in the vocabulary section of the IELTS
speaking test. Because I'm not saying, ‘after that’ which is a very common phrase, I've
added another word in replacement of, ‘after that’ and that is, ‘subsequently’ so
make sure that when you answer questions about a job or education or any common topic you're
prepared with a special vocabulary for them. In this section here, I have written certain
general topics related to you that the examiner might as well go on to ask related to shopping,
transport, food or cuisine that you like and pollution. This was all about the most commonly
asked questions and how you can answer them when it comes to IELTS speaking part 1. I
hope you liked the video, for more information on part 2 and part 1, also part 3, I have
a lot of other videos on the same series, please do watch them and have a fun and a
good productive time whilst learning. Thank you very much for being with me and have a
great day ahead.