In this video,
I’m going to show you
an IELTS Speaking band score 6.0 candidate,
Nancy from China – here she is,
and share with you three common mistakes that she made
when answering some IELTS Speaking Part 1 questions
and that you may make too if you’re at a band 6 or below.
And, if you want to know how to avoid these mistakes,
make sure you watch until the end of the video
because I’m going to show you one way that you can.
I’m also going to show you
what happened to Nancy’s IELTS band score
the next time she took a test.
My name’s Pete Jones,
and if you’ve seen any of my IELTS Speaking band score videos before,
you’ll know that I can help you
understand how your speaking will be assessed in IELTS.
You’ll also know that
I have over 15 years' IELTS teaching experience
and the tips and advice I share work
because they’re based on research
and the real experiences of test takers.
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you can turn on the subtitles
by pressing the caption button below.
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So, I don’t want to keep you waiting any longer.
Here’s Nancy answering some IELTS Speaking Part 1 questions
on the topic of languages.
What I suggest is that you pause the video after each question
and think about how you would answer it,
and then listen to Nancy’s answer
to check if she answers it in a similar way.
And don’t forget that I’ll be back later in the video
to show you three kinds of mistake that Nancy made
and how you can avoid making them too.
I'd like to ask you some questions about languages.
Okay.
How many languages can you speak?
I can speak a little bit English and Japanese,
and my mother tongue is Chinese.
And I want to speak ...
I want to learn Korea in the future.
And how useful will English be to you in your ...
How useful will English be to you in your future?
It's crucial important in my life.
Like when I living in New Zealand,
around me all foreigner people
so I should speak English,
and even for shopping
and like seeking some medical advice.
Yeah, so for me in the future, definitely important.
And what do you remember about learning languages at school?
For me, when I was in middle school,
I began to learn English,
and it's quite difficult
because English grammar and vocabulary is totally different
with the Mandarin.
And at first I need to learn A, B, C, D like that,
and for this alphabet,
I need to learn from a English song.
So it's quite difficult,
but when you began know some vocabulary easy
and you can find every language have their
special, beautiful parts.
So I think for me,
learn a different language is a challenge
but it's good for your whole life.
And what do you think would be the hardest language for you to learn?
I'm not sure.
Yeah, maybe Arabic
because I have a friend,
she comes from a Arabic countries,
and she told me some Arabic language,
and, for me, it's totally different with any other language,
like the step of the writing
and how to say ... like a ...
from left hand to the right hand.
So, for me, it's strange.
It's a weird.
But I think it's quite a little bit funny
if I can learn that one.
So, as I said before,
this is the part where I show you
the kinds of mistake Nancy made,
and how you can avoid making these mistakes yourself.
You may have noticed that I asked Nancy
a question about the past when I said
‘What do you remember about learning languages at school?’,
but did notice whether Nancy used the past form of verbs
in her answer when she should have?
At first I need to learn A, B, C, D like that,
and for this alphabet,
I need to learn from a English song.
As this example shows,
Nancy sometimes forgot to use the past form of verbs
to describe events in the past.
She should have used the past form of the verb ‘need’
and say ‘I needed to learn A, B, C, etc.
and I needed to learn it from English songs’.
This is a common mistake for test takers
at a band score 6 and below,
and something I’ll show you how to avoid
at the end of this video.
The second common mistake that Nancy made
was mispronouncing some words.
Nancy mispronounced the word ‘alphabet’, for example,
when she was talking about learning the English alphabet,
the set of letters used in English for writing.
For this alphabet,
I need to learn from a English song.
The correct pronunciation of this word is ‘alphabet’,
and it’s one of two examples of words
that Nancy mispronounced in her answers.
The other word was ‘Arabic’
when Nancy answered the question about
what language would be the most difficult for her to learn.
She said Arabic may be the most difficult
because it’s totally different from other languages.
Maybe Arabic because
I have a friend,
she comes from a Arabic countries,
and she told me some Arabic language,
and, for me, it's totally different with any other language.
The correct pronunciation of this word is ‘Arabic’.
The third common mistake that Nancy made
was using the wrong form of words,
for example saying ‘crucial’ instead of ‘crucially’
before the word ‘important’
to describe how essential English is in her life.
It's crucial important in my life.
Like when I living in New Zealand ...
Here, Nancy needed to use the adverb ‘crucially’,
not ‘crucial’,
to describe the adjective ‘important’.
So, how do you avoid making these common mistakes:
forgetting to use the past form of verbs,
mispronouncing words,
and using the wrong word form?
Well, the first step to avoiding them
is to notice when you make them,
and one way to do this is to record yourself speaking,
and then listen back to see if you make these kinds of mistake.
Now I know you may be thinking
that you won’t be able to notice your own mistakes,
but I’m telling you that you can.
Nancy was able to identify her mistakes
when I told her what to listen for,
and I’m telling you to listen for the same kind of mistakes,
especially if your first language is a Chinese language,
or you’ve previously got a band score 6 or below
and need a higher score.
And if you need any more motivation to do this,
just look at what happened to Nancy’s IELTS Speaking band score
when she took an IELTS test
about six weeks after we recorded this video
and three months after she got a Speaking band score 6.
She improved her Speaking band score from a 6 to a 7,
and correcting the common mistakes I showed you today
was part of the reason she improved by this much.
Now,
if you want to know what other common mistakes to check for,
watch some of my other Speaking band score videos.
In many of the videos,
I show you mistakes that test takers make
at different band scores
or common mistakes that test takers make
because of their first language.
There are more videos coming
so make sure you hit that subscribe button and notification bell,
and leave a comment if you have any specific questions
about how to improve your speaking.
Remember, I teach everything I know
so you’re in the right place to learn!