IELTS Speaking - Tips from the British Council (Video)

The IELTS Speaking is your chance to show off the quality of your spoken English. These tips from the British Council will help you perform at your peak.

Published on 2017-03-28 Deya Tsoneva

In this video, two teachers from the British Council offer tips on how to prepare for the IELTS Speaking and warn you of pitfalls in this part of the examination:

Give full answers

For the 11 to 14 minutes’ duration of your IELTS Speaking, you have to demonstrate your English language abilities to their utmost. Try to answer the questions with full sentences and support them – try to give a reason when appropriate.

Check out: How IELTS Tests Your Speaking Skills

Work on your vocabulary

If you find yourself using the same vocabulary, you have to seriously consider expanding it. Find sources from which you can take additional words and try to incorporate them into your daily life. Recording a conversation with a friend will help you understand what you have to improve and enable you to track your progress.

Use the one-minute preparation time

Don’t try to write full sentences in the minute you have for thinking. You simply do not have enough time for that and it will confuse you. Instead, write down only the key points which you want to discuss. This way you will have an overview of everything you want to say.

Check out: 11 Steps to Achieving a High IELTS Score

Use the right tenses

Many of the topics in the long turn part are about something in the past. Obviously, when you have been asked a question concerning the past, your choice for this long section should mostly come from past tenses. Try to judge the situation and pick the most accurate tenses for it.

Don’t memorise answers

Some candidates try to predict all questions from a certain part, so they learn the answers of certain questions by heart and then just recite them. However, this is not the smartest move , because you will have 3 parts in total and you cannot memorise all the information you have to say. Moreover, when the level of your English declines at some point, the examiner will spot that and will know that you memorised a certain part of the text. If he detects for one second you’ve memorised an answer he will ignore it.

Check out: What You Should Know About IELTS Results