What is the best advice for the IELTS speaking exam?
There are many possible tips. The first and most important is to take it seriously and prepare properly for it. It’s noticeable how IELTS forums are full of questions about the writing paper but contain very little about the speaking. That represents a problem. In my experience candidates fail as often on the speaking paper as the writing paper.
To redress matters this post gives you 10 of my top tips for the speaking paper. These are all general tips. In later posts I will be expanding on these and giving more particular advice for each part of the paper. Please note that easily the most important tip is number 1.
1. In the exam – listen to and answer the question
The best advice for IELTS speaking is very simply to listen to the question and answer it. The reason for this is for this is the one time you are face to face with the examiner and nerves are a sigificant problem. If you are trying to remember complex advice, you are likely to become more nervous and not perform to your best. Keep it simple.
One example here is in part 1. If you here a question in the past tense:
Eg “What sports did you play as a child?”
A good answer will use the past tense – the examiner will be listening for this.
2. Before the exam – practice
Following on from the previous advice, you need to practice before the exam to make sure that the appropriate skills are automatic. This will only happen if you practice sufficiently. However, you also need to practise the right skills – each part of the speaking paper tests a different skill.
3. Immediately before the exam – speak English
The problem for many people is not speaking English, rather it is moving from their own language into English. The advice here is plain: make certain that you are already speaking English before you go into the exam.
4. Key advice – extend your answer appropriately
If there is one key piece of advice, it is to extend your answer appropriately. For example, this is inappropriate:
Question:” How many languages do you speak?”
Answer: “Two. Chinese and English.”
Better would be:
Answer: “I speak two languages. My first language is Chinese and I speak English too. I’ve been learning English since I was 10. I started learning it when I was in primary school.”
Be aware, however, that very long answers are not always a good idea. It is possible that you will go off topic and lose coherence.
5. Make eye contact
A large part of communication is non-verbal. You are marked by the examiner in the room and you should do everything you can to show that person that you are a good communicator. If you do not make eye contact with the examiner, s/he is probably going to be less impressed with your performance.
6. Do not learn answers
One temptation is to learn answers before the exam. Do not. The examiner will notice and your score will be badly affected.
7. If you don’t understand the question – ask
This is a speaking test and not a listening test. If you don’t understand the question, ask the examiner to repeat or explain it – you should not be penalised for this. If you try to answer a question you do not understand, you will almost certainly become incoherent.
8. Give yourself time to think – repeat/reformulate the question
In parts 1 and 3 you are not given any thinking time: you are supposed to start speaking immediately. This does not mean, however, that you need to start answering the question straight away. What you can do is start by repeating/reformulating or commenting on the question:
“What did I enjoy doing as a child? Let me see…”
“That’s not something I’ve thought about before. It’s an interesting question.’
This has several benefits. It is good communication. It allows you a little time to think. It should also make you answer the question and not the general topic.
9. Correct yourself – if you can do it immediately
If you make a mistake and you can correct it immediately, do so. This will show the examiner that you have control over the language. If, however, you are unsure how to correct yourself, move on: the examiner may not have noticed the mistake in the first place and if you try unsuccessfully to correct it, a small mistake may become a much bigger one.
10. Do not relax too much – it’s not a conversation
This is an exam and you need to show the best side of your spoken English. If you relax too much and become too conversational, your English may suffer. You need to recognise that this is not a true dialogue between two people: it is more of an interview with one person speaking and the other listening.
In a conversation the speaking conventions are quite different: you expect the other person to share 50% of the talk time and to react to your comments, typically one person will not speak for any length of time.
I agree with all that you say Dominic. I would suggest students record sample answers on their mobile phones and listen back to them. It amazes me that students have often never listened to themselves speak.
For part one of the speaking the students can predict the questions. They will probably be asked about their home town so be prepared to talk about it. It is no good saying it is boring or small, or if you are asked about what you do in your free time don’t say ‘nothing’. Practice these types of questions using your mobile phone voice recorder – but never memorise an answer.
i want to get speaking tips
In writing, it is a mark against you if you use the question in your answer, but in speaking, I’ve been told that it’s good to use some vocabulary from the question. Please comment on this, Dominic.
~ Mike
The mistake is to directly copy the question in your writing. The trick here is to rephrase it in your own words – to show your range of expression. In the speaking, the rules are somewhat different. I do train my students to consider repeating the question at the beginning:
It’s something native speakers do
to buy time with tricky questions
to make sure they are going to talk about the right question
This is acceptable to me as speaking is a real-time activity where you do not always have time to pick and choose your words. However, it’s not a trick you can always play as you would bore the examiner, if you did it every time. So save it for tricky/substantive questions. Also, if you can, rephrase the question, rather than repeat it.
I completely agree with the stuff on this site. Actually I was just trying to get an update on typical speaking test questions. I am prooofreading a textbook right now which is lousy with ‘what’s your favourite season’ and ‘ how many seasons are there in your country’ etc type questions. I am in Japan, and I have spent years trying to get my students away from this ‘Japan has four seasons ‘ nonsense, maybe one of the most boring sentences ever uttered in English. Can I assume that (please’!) they will not be asked that question on IELTS, and maybe it is just Japanese English teachers encouraging the students to be very boring? I cannot believe that parrotting off ‘Japan has four seasons’ will or should get them a good grade on IELTS. brgs fion>
Quite right. Parrotted answers are highly dangerous – if only because IELTS examiners hate them – you want the examiner on your side.
Thank you for these helpful tips
I notice that i could get high scores in speaking when the interviewer is a male but if the interviewer is female they give very low scores.. Even i knew I was well prepared and answered every questions fluently since I do believed that I have no priblems with speaking english language for I have been leaving here in England for four years.. It is just mad that some examiners are pathetic!
Thank you
All the those things are very beneficial, I think and also I used these tips in the exam and I get 7.5 over 9 I totally agree with Dominic.
Turkish version: Arkadaslar yalan bu puf noktalar iki bucuk aldim amk adam sallamis ya yazarken bunlari.. neymis efendim yok rahat olacakmissin ama cokta rahat olmayacakmissin falan siktir edin ya bunlari.. Dominic’in taa ebesini ziksinler emi..
You have explained it very precisely and briefly, that’s all the best speaking tip for IELTS, cheers
many thanks for these useful tips. I want to share my problem here. I have already appeared in ielts test and i got 5.5 in speaking but overall 6.5. The main problem with me is that i become nervous in front of examinar. 2nd thing is that i have no friend in my surrounding to practice english. How can i practice alone? Reply plz
I know what you mean by being nervous. I used to work as an examiner for a different set of exams and it was easy to see that some candidates were jsut very nervous and underperformed. But as an examiner you can only mark what you hear!
Have you looked at my post on this? It is possible to practise speaking by yourself. An alternative would be to “advertise” on the FB for a speaking partner.