IELTS🐎🐲💪 -- The Basic Skill of IELTS Speaking Test

1. How to improve fluency?
2. How to speak logically and coherently.
3. What to say if you don’t understand the question?
4. How to avoid long pauses.

Table of contents

How to improve fluency?

So firstly, if you want to improve your fluency, then really the only way of doing it is to speak English regularly.Speak as mush as possible, if you can.

And as an example,I’d like to tell you a little about my experience of learning Chinese and Cantonese.

For Chinese, I was actually able to have a basic conversation with Chinese speakers after only 3 months of learning. And the reason for that was because I just tried to speak as much as I could. Even at the beginning, when I couldn’t say a lot,I would have a dictionary with me, so if I wanted to say something but I didn’t know the word,I just looked up the word and spoke. And in this way, after, as I said, after only 3 months, I was able to, you know, have a general conversation with Chinese speakers, and pretty fluently as well.

In contrast though, when I learned Cantonese at university, event after one year, I still couldn’t speak it very well. I couldn’t even have a simple conversation with a Cantonese speaker. And the reason was simple. It was that I just didn’t spend much time practicing speaking. You know, I actually went to classes, I did my homework, but I just didn’t spend much time speaking it. So as a result, even after one year, I still, you know, I just couldn’t have a conversation. So that’s really the key thing to remember, speak as much as possible!

And I can see this clearly in my classes here in China. The students which have the best spoken English are the ones which take every opportunity to speak. They’re not afraid of making mistakes. They’ll just speak whenever they can, try and answer every question. So this is something to try and do.

Another thing is to also try to practice answering questions that you haven’t prepared for. I’ve noticed here that many students will spend most of their time writing prepared answers for the questions in the speaking test. And that’s ok, but that shouldn’t be the only thing you do, because if this is all you do, then if you do come across a question in the test that you’re not familiar with, you’ll have difficulty answering it. You’ll probably panic and not know what to say, whereas if you’ve practiced in your free time answering questions that you haven’t prepared for, you quick thinking will be better, you’ll be better able to answer these questions in a fluent way.

How to speak logically and coherently?

So, another aspect of the speaking test is coherence and details, And the main thing to remember here is to have a good structure.

So, first of all, answer the question directly. Ok, and then after that, explain yourself. You could do this by giving reasons and examples. And then at the end, you can … at the end, you can repeat your key point if you want, but that’s optional.

So let’s do an example. If the question is,“Do you like your school?”

A good structured answer would be something like,“Yes I do, because firstly the teachers are very nice. You know, they’re always kind to us, they smile a lot, they hardly every shout at us.And also my classmates are really cool.You know, I get on really well with all of them.So yeah,I like my school a lot.” So you’ll see in that answer, first of all I answered directly. I said, “yes I do” then I explained why. I gave one reason, being the teachers were very nice. I then gave some more detailed examples of how they were nice: they smiled, they didn’t shout at us a lot. And then I gave another reason, being my classmates, who were really cool, very nice, and then another detail, that we get on really well with each other. And then I finished my answer by repeating my key opinion, whcih was I like my school very much. So if you can remember this structure: answering directly, explaining yourself - reason or examples or both, and then finishing with your key points. then you can pretty much answer every question. At least you have a strategy of answering every question, even ones that you haven’t prepared for.

Ok, let’s look at another aspect of the fluency score, which is Relevance. And this is quite important, because often, the examiner will ask one question, but the student will answer differently.

So let’s say the question is, “What’s your favourite colours?” And you say, “I like blue.” Then actually, you haven’t answer the question, because the question was,“What’s your favourite colour?”, not,“What colour do you like?” So, you should answer here, “My favourite colour is…” or,“I like … the most” Ok, so listen very carefully to the question.

Another example might be,“What sports are popular in your country?” If you say, “I like basketball very much”,then again, you haven’t answered the question, because this is not a personal question towards you, it’s more about people in your country, what’s popular in your country. So listen very very carefully! This is also something to remember for the written test as well, especially seeing as the written test, there are only 2 questions, so if you answer one of them indirectly, or you don’t answer the question at all, then that’s gonna have a very big impact on your score. And many students have not answered the question properly because maybe the question’s been similar to another question they’ve prepared for, and they’ve tried to fit their prepared answer into that question, when it’s not suitable. And that’s gonna bring down their score. So be very careful about this.

What to say if you don’t understand the question?

If you don’t understand the question, it’s always good to check with the examiner. Some students might think, ah, that will make my score go lower, but it won’t. This is actually showing good communication skills. If you pretend you understand the question, and then you answer differently, then that will make your score lower. So always good to check. If you don’t understand the question, you could say something like,“Sorry,I didn’t quite catch that” or “Sorry, please could you repeat that.” If you think you understood the question, but you’re not so sure, then you could say something like,“Can I just check, do you mean…” or “Can I just check, is the question,…” That’s also ok. If the examiner repeats the question, but there is still a word that you don’t understand, then you could say something like,“I’m sorry I’m not familiar with the word ’…’, please could you explain it?please could you rephrase it.” That’s also ok.

How to avoid long pauses.

Another aspect is long pauses. This happens a lot in the speaking test, but in order to deal with this, try to speak while you’re thinking. And this is also something you do in Chinese as well. For example, in Chinese, I often hear speakers say things like,“怎么说呢”,“叫什么来着”,“还有什么？” So this is something you can say in English as well.

So if you’re trying to express yourself, you don’t know how, while you’re thinking, you can say,“How can I put it?”,which is the same as “怎么说呢？“. I’ve heard many Chinese speakers say “how to say?” And that’s ok, but that’s not really correct English. Much more native style to say,“How can I put it?” If there’s a word you’re trying to remember, then a good phrase to use when you’re thinking is,“What’s the word?” Like, “My friend’s very … uh, what’s the word… very…” And that’s like,“叫什么来着？“. A good phrase to use.

If you’re answer is quite short, you’re thinking of other things to say. then you could say “What else?”(“还有什么？”) or, “What else is there?” So just to give you time to think of something else.

So yep, these are some of the key things to remember for fluency. Thank you!