the IELTS Speaking exam is often misunderstood the misconception is that the examiner is sitting
there counting your mistakes and deducting marks for each of them that's not how it works IELTS is
an exam that rewards for positives more than it penalizes for negatives such as grammar mistakes
examiners use four criteria to assess your speaking skills let's talk about
each of them and what you can do to push your score up it's Asiya let's get started [Music]
the first Criterion is fluency coherence yes you need to show you can speak fluently even
if you are not a chatty person make the most of every opportunity to interact with the examiner
right from the beginning good morning my name is Jane Brown could you tell me your full name please
good morning nice to meet you my name is Asia niad we know that ayat speaking is not the same
as a real conversation because even in part three it's not two-way The Examiner asks questions and
you answer them but starting off being confident and friendly will make the examiner's task easier
here is the first tip extend your answers what the examiner is hoping for is your ability to develop
any topic as fully as you need to to speak with hardly any hesitation not to repeat yourself too
much and of course to join up what you say with appropriate connecting words and phrases it's a
lot to ask and your performance can suffer if you don't extend your answers enough making
yourself appear less fluent in part one it's when our answers are too short would you like to learn
more about the stars and planets no not really it's not a subject I find interesting why not The
Examiner will ask for more information with a why not question but it's better to go into detail by
explaining yourself first no not really it's not a subject I've ever found particularly interesting
perhaps because my main interests have always been in the humanities as I told you I studied
psychology and now work in human resources and to be honest I'm not a Sci-Fi fan so one vital key to
improved performance is extending your answers always try to add an explanation whenever you
can or an example to put what you're saying into context in part one your answers should be about
20 to 30 seconds and you can talk about yourself while in part three you have up to a minute for a
chance so it's even more important to extend them however in part three you have to talk in general
terms not about yourself listen to this how important is it for advertisers to tell the truth
in advertisements well I guess advertisers should be honest and tell customers exactly what they're
buying because if not they would lose trust in the product and the company that makes it of course
those customers most likely would never come back to buy the same product again in the future
besides that um there's always the risk of someone suing the company I think there are
laws about that in the USA I mean being sued is certainly not good for the lasting image of a
company this is a solid part three answer there are different ways to extend your answers which
we've discussed in this video and I'll link it in the description about part two this is the section
where you receive a cue card with a topic and are expected to speak for between one and two minutes
for the best results aim to speak for the entire two minutes until the examiner stops you
this will give you more time to demonstrate your fluency vocabulary and grammar skills
and don't worry if you don't finish your talk before the time Runs Out what's important
in part two is to develop your talk coherently logically link your ideas and sentences together
here is a classic structure you can use for your part two topic so our topic is
to describe a person who likes to grow plants not an easy one now but here's what you can
do about it the felt bullet point is to say who the person is so start by introducing the person
next discuss how you know the person and again I have a full paragraph about it similarly you can
dedicate a paragraph to what types of plants the person grows and why growing plants is important
you can pause the video to read the answer and see how it's organized I'll also link
the video about the Sansa and how to tackle part 2 cue cards when you don't know what to say now
the next tip to improve your fluency and coherence score is to use pauses and time to think phrases
we're talking about answering lots of questions some of these especially in part three may not be
so easy to answer without pausing for a moment to gather your thoughts how long is a pause in IELTS
that's an important question examiners work on a 5 Second silence in part 2 for example
a five second silence can prompt the question is there anything else you tell me about this
in part three a post to think for a moment is Perfectly Natural that question we just looked
at about truth in advertising is a good example of that it began with a simple well I guess but you
can also say a little more a phrase that will not only give you some time to think but also impress
examiner with your skill at using Expressions that keep the dialogue flowing here are some examples
to be honest well to tell you the truth in my opinion I guess if you ask me others make a
comment on how much you know about the topic this is not something I know a lot about but
I've never given this very much thought but I've never thought about that before
all these phrases sound Perfectly Natural they're part of the ways we keep conversations going
you know an examiner told me that test takers often overuse one phrase in these situations this
is not a good idea learn and feel comfortable with several of these type to think phrases by
the way can you guess what the most overused phrase is that's an interesting question no
problem using it once but once is enough and try to say it in a situation where the question is you
know interesting the second skill examiners assess is your lexical results or put simply vocabulary
according to the IELTS band descriptors that examiners use you need a wide range
of vocabulary and some less common and idiomatic words and phrases
on top of that you need to be able to paraphrase to explain things in your own words
I have several tips to help you when it comes to lexical results my first tip is to use words you
know which really means don't try to sound like a dictionary don't try to impress The Examiner with
words you don't often use in conversation keep it simple that doesn't mean not to use specialized
vocabulary but don't sound too technical it will give the impression that you've memorized what
you're saying an examiners don't want to hear that here's an example where do you work as a
geophysicist working for an international exploration company I'm mainly involved
in Care Now seismic wave measurements which means transmitting the output from a this sounds like a
memorized answer be natural make sure the examiner is following you like this I'm a geophysicist I
collect data on different types of what we call seismic waves like kind of Earth movements and
with that data we can know what's under the surface like oil or gas that's how people talk
the language is simpler but the answer is so much better let's go on to idiomatic language idioms
can be tricky of course if you know and feel comfortable using some idiomatic expressions
feel free to use them for example you might have learned the expression under the weather to mean
not feeling well if you're sure you can use it in the right place and at the right time go ahead
How about if you're asked to describe a time when you were very busy in part two and you say this
it was this time last year in fact I was studying so hard for my final exams at University but I'd
also been feeling a bit under the weather with some kind of flu this is fine but here is a word
of warning and examine a friend of mine told me of a case where a test taker had used this
same expression about five times can you guess one of the most overused idiomatic expressions
in a nutshell which means in short or to sum up please don't overdo it the same could be said for
Expressions that have become cliches something that has become so overused with time that it
no longer has an impact and even might sound old-fashioned do we say these days things like
as old as the hills or it trains cats and dogs not really at least if the examiner asks you about the
weather in your country it's better to say that you often have tropical downpours in summer no
cats no dogs right let's move on one of the worst things that happened to me in the speaking test is
when I forgot the word I needed in the middle of the sentence it feels quite embarrassing
what's the solution try not to get stuck look for a simple paraphrase imagine in a part two
topic describe your ideal home you could say this yes it would have all along the front of the house
um you know a place where you can see it and look at the view what's the missing word
Veranda or maybe porch but here it's a place outside where you can sit a short description
we could also use a word we know is not the right one but has some similarities
a kind of balcony on the ground floor the next skill is your grammar
how to improve your performance here examineers that says if you use a variety of grammatical
structures and how accurately you do this or how often you make mistakes and we all make mistakes
very fluent speakers even native speakers make mistakes we usually call slips here is a very
common one there's a lot of opportunities when you're starting to say there is you may not yet
know what you're gonna say next and as a result you end up with a sentence like this it's asleep
if you do notice you've made a mistake don't be afraid to correct it straight away I've
been to Paris last year I mean that's when I went there at the same time there is no magic wound to
avoid mistakes I still make them occasionally don't let the fear of making mistakes paralyze
you expressing your thoughts is more important examiners also assess how many complex structures
you use by complex I mean conditional sentences with if modal verbs such as May might could as
well as the passive voice and many other structures I don't think you really have
time to think grammatical structure should I use here let me add a past perfect tense
so use what you know now for the fourth category pronunciation the truth is most
of us will always speak English with an accent sometimes a very noticeable one sometimes not
this is nothing to worry about The Examiner wants you to speak clearly and be easily understood even
though you may mispronounce an occasional word what about speed you don't want to speak too
slowly but that's often not something you can help or too fast don't think that if you just keep on
talking and talking and talking you're gonna get a high score no articulate words clearly
a third important aspect is how you express meaning feelings and opinions through stress
the way you emphasize certain words to express what you want to say every language has its own
stress patterns and one way to sound English if you like is to imitate those patterns one
problem you may recognize is speaking in a kind of monotone if your voice is quite flat
never going up or down too much and not stressing the key words let's take a simple example listen
to this notice which words are stressed does a student slow down a little at any point it wasn't
my last year at school and I was chosen to give the graduation speech in front of my classmates
teacher and parents maybe it sounded a little like this the words and capitals are stressed
and the adults between words mean slowing down a little articles and prepositions are
not pronounced as clearly as the words that carry the main meaning you may not feel confident doing
this and it may feel like you are doing too much or acting and you know I had speaking test is a
performance and you should practice for it to rehearse just like actors it's important that
you study model answers and practice answering typical questions from all three parts of the test
it's a great idea to record your test practices and listen to yourself or work with a speaking
partner here is how you can find one if you're on telegram we have hundreds of students looking
for partners every month just open your app search for Fast Track IELTS click in the top
right corner and search for hashtag partner we're publish a new post every month and that's a great
place to connect and at the top of the channel you can see recent questions for your practice
and believe me it does work when you listen to model answers or other sources of spoken English
and imitate what you hear I actually have a video where you can listen to and repeat IELTS speaking
answers after my friend Alex who has beautiful British pronunciation and try it right here and
thank you so much for watching me today good luck with your preparation and your exam bye