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The speaking interview is designed to give the examiner plenty of opportunity to hear you speak so that they can make an accurate assessment of your speaking ability.
There is NO MARKING CRITERIA for giving the answering the question.
Why not? Because there is NO RIGHT ANSWER.
The examiner really doesn’t care what you talk about, as long as you talk.
The examiner has a list of ‘prompts’ or questions about a range of topics. The questions are designed for ALL levels and get gradually more difficult. So this might start with a simple:
‘What’s your favourite colour? Why?’
and then get more complex, leading up to something like
‘Is there any colour that you would NOT choose to decorate your room? Why?’
The biggest danger here is giving answers that are too SHORT.
This happens to even the most fluent and advanced speakers (especially native speakers!).
Train yourself to say ‘because….’ or ‘so…’. This will help you get a good score for fluency and coherence.
Show the examiner that you can easily ‘speak at length without noticeable effort’ (Band 7 in the Speaking Descriptors).
They want to see that you can ‘discuss a variety of topics’ (Band 7 in the Speaking Descriptors in the Speaking Descriptors).
Make sure you’ve got the right vocabulary and that you’ve practiced this part with a teacher or good speaker who can check your pronunciation too.
When the examiner asks you about your full name and where you’re from right at the start of the test, they will probably say
‘And what shall I call you?’
This is just so that they can use your first name and help you relax. Be ready for this question. Answer it naturally. Don’t be too formal. Say something like
‘Fiona’s fine’
(insert your own name of course! LOL!)
Now you have 2 minutes to talk about a topic. These topics can be grouped into 5 broad categories:
e.g. a teacher you like, a polite person you know, a neighbour, someone you remember from your childhood, a person you admire, a celebrity, someone you met recently.
e.g. something you bought/took back to the shop, a gadget in your house, something you’re planning to buy, something that is special to you, a piece of technology (not a mobile phone or laptop!), a gift you gave/received, a photo/painting you like.
e.g. a museum, a sports venue, a park, a tourist attraction, a building you like, a restaurant/cafe/shop you often go to
a party you attended, a meal you enjoyed, a sports event/concert you went to, a time when you won a prize/medal, a speech you gave, a holiday/difficult journey, a film you saw, a book you read, a day out.
e.g. a job you’d like to have, a something you’d like to buy, a language/skill you’d like to learn, a country you’d like to visit, a small business you’d like to star.t
e.g. a hobby, a website you use, a cafe you like going to, a song/pop group you like, a newspaper you often read.
This is where the examiner really gets an opportunity to see what you’re capable of. This is where you could be hitting all the higher scores if you show the examiner that you can:
These are all Band 7 on the Speaking Descriptors.
The questions are related to the topic you discussed in Speaking Part 2. In this part, the examiner can ask you questions more freely, so they might ask you to explain more, or be more specific, or give an example. Don’t feel stressed by this – it just shows that the examiner thinks you can take on the challenge of more complex questions.
And don’t worry if the examiners seems to disagree with you – this is just a way of asking you to support your arguments with clear argumentation. These are all things that you can practise, and my advice is to keep up-to-date with typical issues that come up in IELTS. I post these regularly on my Facebook page. Make sure that you read the articles, note down the vocabulary, and keep a list of key arguments for and against. This will also help you with your reading and writing of course!
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