hi there it's asiya in this video let's talk about three things you can do
right now to start speaking english more naturally and improve your ielts speaking score
without further ado let's get started
number one pay more attention to pronunciation when ielts examiners assess you 25 percent of
your score depends on your pronunciation however when we learn english we dedicate less time to it
than any other skills of course at the very beginning your ability to say something is more
important than how you say it as your english skills improve the importance of pronunciation
increases right now i'm not talking about your accent you're not expected to have a certain
accent to get a high score in ielts speaking and the fact that the examiner can clearly hear your
russian indian or italian accent will not prevent you from getting even the top score what matters
is how easy it is to understand you you are marked on pronunciation examiners check
pronunciation of individual sounds and words word stress and sentence stress and intonation do you
think you pronounce sounds and words correctly have a look at these pairs of words do they
sound the same or differently have a moment to look through and think about it let's check
so these are my words
pool let me try pool
okay that's good next
pull
let's say paul you see actually the main sound in question is wrong it's red and i if i click on it
i can see what's happened so that's the sound we need it's a short sound slightly part your teeth
and keep your lips relaxed okay relaxed lips let me try again
pull
much better okay let's listen to all the other words bed bed bad bad ship ship sheep sheep
not not note note hair hair hare hare you see all pairs of words are pronounced in a different way
apart from the last one hair and hare sound exactly the same english language has quite
a lot of vowel sounds and some of them have only slight but noticeable difference
and if you want to speak this language well you should learn how to pronounce
each sound in english i did that a few years ago and it helped me improve my pronunciation
quite significantly i created the list of words i showed you earlier in the app called elsa speak
and it has a lot of features to help you improve your pronunciation if you go to skills
you can take lessons on each group of sounds and here in study sets you can create your own lists
of words phrases or even sentences and learn how to pronounce them and in the dictionary
you can check if you pronounce a certain word or phrase correctly you can either type them
first or just speak another useful rule i suggest adopting is this every time you learn a new word
check how it's pronounced never make assumptions because there are simply too many exceptions in
english and re-learning later is much harder than memorizing the correct pronunciation from the very
beginning okay pronunciation is important that's clear however during your exam don't think about
sounds and stress and intonation it's more important to concentrate on understanding
the question and then answering it what you can do to improve your pronunciation score
during your exam is to make it as easy for the examiner to understand you as possible especially
if you have to wear a mask you see it's a bit more difficult to understand me now because you
can't read my lips so speak loud and clear next soften your language when we take the bare bones
of an idea and translate it into english our language becomes very direct it may sound quite
rude let me show you a few words and expressions you can use to sound more polite and natural
you can use adverbs such as quite i'm quite a good swimmer it sounds softer and more modest
than simply stating i'm a good swimmer fairly i play tennis fairly well rather the waiting time is
rather long i'm not saying it's definitely long because it depends on what you compare it with
but it's rather long pretty the solution is pretty obvious then there is a difference between
facts and opinions most of the questions in ielts speaking are either about you or your opinion and
native speakers tend to frequently use words and phrases that show that you are giving your humble
opinion and not facts of course you can use such phrases as i think i suppose i guess i believe
you can use personally to highlight that other people may be different personally i prefer
taking a train to driving on the motorway and this implies that i understand that some people prefer
driving to be honest it doesn't mean that you could be dishonest we tend to use this phrase to
show that we are either revealing some information or say something that may be a bit surprising
to be honest i've never thought about giving furniture as a gift next seem when you say
something about your thoughts feelings or actions you seem to make it less strong
this map seems to be wrong i'm not a hundred percent sure but it seems so or using an early
example saying the waiting time seems rather long is much more polite than simply saying the waiting
time is very long even though you may mean the same thing another verb is tend we use it to say
that something is likely to happen in a particular way because this is what usually happens
people tend to be happier when they are in a long-term relationship this is generally true but
not always you can also use modal verbs this is another way to introduce an element of probability
into what otherwise be effect some people may want to move abroad for better work opportunities
even though you know that this is true in english it's still very natural to
use a modal verb to soften your language in this case may indicates probability
exercise can help reduce stress this is a general truth it means that generally in most
cases exercise reduces stress but occasionally it doesn't so exercise can help reduce stress there
are different situations when you may need to use modal verbs and i have a more detailed video
on how to use them in ielts and i will link it in the video description box below the next way to
sound more natural in your ielts speaking exam is to practice answers to common ielts topics
it's generally easier to talk about familiar topics about something you've discussed before
topics in ielts are generally reused for quite a long time so a good way to prepare is to collect
some ideas on common topics and to practice answering them the very first topic in part one
is easy to predict because every exam begins with a few questions about your family
home home town work or studies i've prepared a pdf guide with questions sample answers
and vocabulary for some of these topics and it's linked in the video description box below please
download it another place to practice your answers to ielts speaking questions is elsa speak so here
you can find all the lessons on different topics and you can actually practice all three parts for
example sports inside you see all the lessons some are free some require paid subscription
and they have different levels of difficulty so these lessons are medium
and let's check one get interested so first you learn a phrase get interested
okay now a whole sentence i'm getting pretty interested in that
i'm getting pretty interested in that
and you can click on any sound and see where you could improve elsa speak allows you to practice
your answers to all three parts of your ielts exam and offers a great selection of lessons
and topics for you to choose from to improve your pronunciation i suggest practicing 10 minutes a
day but every day if your elsa score isn't perfect don't worry mine isn't the goal is to find areas
for improvement and work on them elsa speak gives you amazingly detailed feedback on each word
and each sound i haven't seen in another app like that when you install it take the assessment test
you get an overall score and scores for your pronunciation fluency and intonation the app
also gives you a predicted ielts score based on your pronunciation intonation
and speech rhythm or pacing of course ielts examiners use three other criteria to assess
you a lot of features in elsa speak are available for free including the assessment test quite a few
lessons and the dictionary where you can learn how to pronounce any word or sentence to access
all the lessons you need a subscription and i have a discount code for you you save eighty percent
if you subscribe for a lifetime and thirty percent if you take an annual subscription the link to get
the discount is in the video description box below i've also included a link to download the app
and a link to my study set containing all the words and examples from this video so you can
check if you can pronounce them correctly i hope you give it a try because it's a really great
app to improve your pronunciation and prepare for your ielts speaking exam all the links are in
the video description box below thank you so much for watching this lesson don't forget to download
the pdf guide with part 1 questions sample answers and useful vocabulary and watch this
lesson to learn how to use modal verbs in ielts thank you for watching me today good luck bye