If your exam is tomorrow and they ask you: “How are you helping the environment?” – what do you say?

Well, here is an idea. It’s not my idea, nonetheless it’s an excellent one. Everybody, meet Wayne Kirk and he will teach you how to save the world.

Wayne Kirk lives in Chengdu, China and he is a man on a mission. He started a project that will help us all to stop the Global Warming by growing a plant that absorbs CO2 in unbelievable amounts.

The plant is Algae and it can convert 30 times more CO2 than any other plant. Growing it is easy and Wayne has a very simple explanation how to start on his website. Click here to quickly learn and start reducing your carbon footprint.

Why should you care? Well, if you decided to grow the plant, that’s wonderful and you will be doing a favor to the environment, your kids and your grand-kids, but even if you didn’t – this is something you can tell your examiner if they ask you “What have you done for the environment so far?”

So go ahead, check project’s website and enrich your IELTS “things to say” list!

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This post is basically a common mistake alert. As you know I’m receiving a lot of emails from IELTS test takers and they tell me about their exams, what went right, what went wrong, and we analyze the situation and what should have been done differently.

And here is a point regarding the latest exam. As you know it was identical in many countries and apparently many people had the same problems, because they weren’t mentally prepared.

Assumption # 1

People assumed that task 1 in Academic IELTS will be a chart or a graph – and when they were given a diagram, it came as a complete shock. As a result, it took them longer to get their head around the task and they spent over 30 minutes only thinking what they are going to write in their report. Then it’s a chain accident – if the first task takes you longer, you don’t have enough time for your essay and you are stressed, so the performance goes down the drain.

This could be easily solved by practicing beforehand. Guys, when you practice – don’t choose just graphs, prepare for diagrams as well, it;s important to be prepared for whatever they throw at you and not things you think are likely to appear. If you’re under time pressure and have only a week to study – fine, do just one or two diagrams, but at least try yourself at it.

Assumption # 2

I don’t know why, but people assume that IELTS questions never repeat – when this blog is a proof that they do, and quite often. I’ve got an email from a student that said: “You know what is really ironic? I saw my speaking question the night before my exam in IELTS-Blog, but thought I will never get the same and didn’t practice for it.”

Do yourself a favor – go through the list of recent exams and familiarize yourself with the latest questions. The best chances to get the same questions as before are, of course, in the Speaking test, however in the Writing test we too have seen that the questions were repeated over time.

And above everything else – good luck with your preparation and I wish you an easy exam!

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Doan Hung Phuong, Band 7 student, shares with us his secrets to success in the Speaking test.

Speaking tips

Speaking is a weakness of analytic learners (who learn English from books and tapes). Moreover, in countries where English is not a first language, improving your speaking in English is really difficult. Therefore, I don’t have much experience in practicing speaking. Here are some tips that I got from my teachers and some suggestions that I think they might be helpful for you.

Pronunciation is the most important feature in speaking. If you speak correctly, academically and interestingly, but no one understands what you are talking about, you certainly lose your points.

One of my teachers, who is fluent in 5 languages, shares his experience that pronunciation is the key of learning a language. It might be true since native English speakers can pronounce a unfamiliar word correctly but don’t know how to spell it. Because English is a combination of many languages, there are no totally general rules for pronunciation. As a result, you must remember everything.

So how to pronounce the words correctly?

- Firstly, listen and learn what native English speaker said. As I mentioned, listening can help you in speaking. You can correct yourself in basic words if you listen a lot. Moreover, listening can also help you to learn how to stress important words, how to speak naturally and even how to organize your speech.

- Secondly, if you learn a new word, you must know how to pronounce it first. Typically, when people want to learn new words, they revise these words again and again, and write it down so many times. But now, to improve your speaking and listening, you must hear electronic dictionary pronouncing and repeat after it again and again.

- Thirdly, make sentences with new vocabulary. Everybody might know how to pronounce words correctly, but when they combine them all together, they cannot pronounce correctly anymore, or even if they do, their sentence may sound unnatural. The reason is they lack of intonation. Listening might solve this problem.

- Fourthly, practice pronunciation every week (3-4 times a week) by reading out loud a short passage. At first, you practice to pronounce all the words in that passage correctly. Then read the whole passage slowly and correctly (pay attention to ending sound).

Afterward, increase reading speed in each sentence (’read’ here means you must speak out the words, not read in your mind). If you speak quickly but start to pronounce wrongly, that means you reach your limit, don’t speak faster than that. And finally, you read the whole passage again at normal speed, or may be a bit faster than normal a little bit, but you MUST include intonation.

To find material for practicing this exercise, you can visit this website: http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com. There are hundreds of short news and audio files spoken by a native speaker. I guarantee if you practice this kind of exercise gradually, you pronunciation will improve a lot. (Note: this is the exercise of my teacher, who speaks 5 languages, as I mentioned before)

Now, to prepare for IELTS Speaking test, you should practice some more exercises:

- Pick a topic and stand in front of mirror to practice speaking test. You should go through all three parts of the real speaking test. Standing in front of mirror will help you improve your body language and also your pronunciation. You might find it strange that mirror can correct your pronunciation. In fact, there are some vowels and consonants that you can’t pronounce correctly if you don’t know how to do that (not just simply remember the pronunciation).

- Try to speak naturally. You are advised to speak fast with intonation (the previous reading exercise will certainly help you). You should learn and apply some verb phrases, idioms and slang expressions. This is not the key part of speaking test, but it is better if you know, not only for your test but also for you speaking skill. If you want to get 7.0, you must master pronunciation, accuracy and intonation.

Important tip #1
When you practice in speaking, you must pay attention to the ending sound. But when you take the real test, don’t do that, because it will affect your fluency. In the real test, it is the time you show examiner what you got, not the time you can show them how good you can correct yourself. Using experience you gained from practicing to prove your speaking skill.

Important tip #2
Another wonderful way to practice speaking is to speak English in your dream. If you never do that, you do it now. I have already spoken English in my dreams even before my teacher advice me to do so. I just watch cartoons in English, films in English and listen to songs in English. As a result, I naturally dream in English. Actually, I can control my dreams, lol, it is very interesting, try to do that. By doing that, I can think quickly in my mind, but I still have problems when speaking my ideas out. So, you must do 2 previous exercises in order to improve speaking.

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Here are some real reading test questions that students from India recently had in their exam:

Speaking test #1

Interview
1. Is bicycle a best/good transport?
2. Do you think that there should be separate lane for bicycles?
3. Why should a child have bicycle?
4. Are you working or a student?

Cue card
Describe a famous person, you should say:
Who he is?
Why is he famous?
Would you like to meet him/her why?

Follow up questions:
1. Which quality should a famous person have?
2. Why do young generation copy them?
3. Who were the famous persons 50 years ago and who will be famous in the next 50 years?
4. Should they have personal life?
5. If you get a chance to be famous what would be your attitude?

Speaking test #2

Interview
1. What is your full name?
2. How can I call you?
3. Can I see your identification?
4. What do people usually do on weekends in your country?
5. What do you do on weekends?
6. Did you think art is important in life, like painting and sculptures?
7. Did you draw anything when you were at school?
8. Are there any art galleries and museums in your home town?

Cue card
Describe an animal you saw, which you find very interesting. You should say:
Where you saw it?
How you felt about it?
Why do you think it was interesting?

Follow up questions
1. What kind of animals people have in their home?
2. An animal you saw which is very rare to see in your home town?
3. Why people have pets in their home?
4. Do you think people do not give respect animals in these days. What about 50 years ago?
5. Earlier people used animals for their work. Now, what people use to do their work?
6. Researchers are conducted on animals, is this a good idea?
7. So many animals are extinct in these days. What do you think? why it is happening?

Speaking test #3

Interview
1. Recent changes of home town.
2. Meaning of your name?
3. Why your were given this name?
4. How may I address you?

Cue card
Describe a recent happiest event you had.

Follow up questions
1. What moments make other people happy?
2. What moments are happy for elderly?
3. Are rich people happy?

Speaking test #4

Interview
1. What is your full name?
2. How may I address you?
3. Where are you living?
4. How long have you been living there?
5. What are the advantages of your home town?
6. Is there any swimming pool?
7. Have you visited any swimming pool any where?

Cue card
Describe a famous person in your country.

Follow up questions
1. Why do people want to get fame?
2. How can a person be famous?
3. Which person get inspiration by famous people?
4. Which type of people get inspiration from celebrities?
5. What sort of people were famous in past, say 50 years ago?

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Speaking (both Academic and General)

Full transcript of interview, examiner’s questions and candidate’s answers, click here to view

Cue Card – 2 examples (just questions on cards, no answers), click here to view

Full transcript of a cue card talk, both examiner and candidate participating, click here to view

Another card and following questions, click here to view

Full transcript of discussion (part 3 in the Speaking test), both examiner and the candidate participating, click here to view

Questions for discussion, click here to view

Did you like this collection of samples? More are coming, make sure you don’t miss them – subscribe and get them seconds after they’ve been published.

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Many students asked me how they can get a better score for Speaking. One of the things that matters in the Speaking test is your pronunciation. When you study with a teacher, improving your pronunciation is easier – he can correct you and you can listen to him and just copy the way he pronounces words. But what do you do if you’re all alone and study by yourself?

A number of things, actually!

First, you can use a free web-based text-to-speech application such as this one (click here to try). “Text-to-speech” means exactly that – you type a word and the program says it. Get a passage of text and start reading it out loud. Any word you are not sure how to pronounce, type in that website and click “Say it” to hear it. Repeat it again and again until you remember the right way to say it.

Second, you can record yourself speak – using a computer or a tape recorder, an mp3 player, a mobile phone – now there are many devices that allow voice recording. Then listen to your recorded voice and make note of what words are mispronounced. Start working on those using the talking website again and get them right.

Third, get a recording of news/radio/anything made by native English speakers. Play it and repeat after them, trying to copy the way they pronounce words.

A word of advice – there is no quick and easy fix for bad pronunciation. The chances are that you won’t get rid of your accent completely – but the accent doesn’t matter in IELTS as long as you pronounce the words correctly, so work hard on that, and you should be just fine!

Did you like this post? New ones are coming every day – subscribe and read future updates seconds after they’ve been published.

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I found another video example of the Speaking test, the second part, where you get a card with a topic and some questions. In this one the card is:

Describe a special occasion in your life

You should say:
- where this occasion took place
- when it occurred
- who was there
and explain how you felt on this special occasion.

And here comes the video, enjoy:

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Here is another great example of IELTS Speaking test. This time it is focused on the third part of the Speaking test. As you know, in that part the examiner asks the student questions related to the cue card they just finished answering.

In this video the student is asked about children, parents and their relationships.

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As you know, the Speaking section in IELTS is now rated differently since half band-scores were introduced. This post should answer the question so many students are asking ? what is the difference between Band 5.5 and 6, what do I need to improve to get that extra half band? In my understanding (and according to what www.ielts.org says), this is the difference between the band scores for Speaking test:

Speaking Band 5.0

Candidate tries to keep the speech flowing but hesitation gets in the way. His responses are rather short, he tries to use linking words but does that un-naturally (they seem forced). Only simple sentences are fluent, in more complex ones the coherence is much worse. There are repetitions of the same words and the same sentence structures. His pronunciation is not very good, that includes incorrect words’ stress.

Speaking Band 5.5

Candidate gives short answers, not willing to talk at length. Responses are exactly what he’s being asked. He hesitates a little and sometimes uses linking words incorrectly. His vocabulary is simple but sufficient for him to talk on the subject and make himself clear. The grammar of simple sentences is mostly accurate, but there are several errors in more complex sentences, many of which are left incomplete. There are many mispronounced words.

Speaking Band 6

Candidate is willing to talk at length, not always directly answering the question. The speech is mostly fluent with some hesitation and repetition. Usage of linking words (like however, on one hand, then again, etc) is there, but not always they are used appropriately or accurately. The vocabulary is large enough for candidate to speak on the given topic and he is easy to understand, even if there are some grammatical errors. The candidate uses both simple and complex sentence structures; but it shows that the grammar in complex ones is harder for him to control. The pronunciation is mostly correct with occasional errors.

Speaking Band 6.5

Candidate can talk at length without much hesitation or repetition. His sentences are easy to follow ? the information has a sequence and he uses linking words to move smoothly from one idea to another. His vocabulary includes not only simple but also sophisticated words on the subject, even if sometimes the choice of a word is inappropriate, the meaning is perfectly clear. Strong accent gets in the way of correct pronunciation.

Speaking Band 7

Candidate speaks smoothly without much effort. The linking words are used naturally and in the right places. He doesn’t cover the whole subject in his answers. His vocabulary is appropriate but not sophisticated and doesn’t show variations, the language is fluent but relatively simple. He uses some idioms and sometimes does that inappropriately. The control of grammar is good, the mistakes are rare. His pronunciation is good and the accent doesn’t get in the way.

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I’ve received hundreds of emails after my previous post about the Interview part of IELTS Speaking test, all asking for more Speaking videos. So guess what – yesterday I spotted this one on YouTube, I watched it 5 times and thought that it’s a good demonstration of what IELTS Speaking test is really like.

It is almost as long as the real Speaking test and includes 2 parts: Cue Card and Discussion (they skipped the Interview).

Enjoy!

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