Tips For Ielts Speaking Part 2

THE PROBLEMS OF SPEAKING PART 2:
1) Don’t speak for the full 2 minutes.
2) Run out of things to say.
3) Have an unstructured talk.
4) Read their notes rather than speak naturally.
5) Panic because they think they know nothing about the topic.
How long to speak for

A common question from students is, “Do I have to talk for exactly 2 minutes?” The
simple answer is “No”. Keep talking until the examiner stops you, which will be at
around 2 minutes. If you stop before 1 minute 40 or 1 minute 50, this will probably
affect your score as you may lose marks for fluency & coherence.
Why people finish early

It’s because they’ve run out of things to say. The reason they don’t know what else
to say is generally that they haven’t used their 1 minute planning time wisely. This is
most likely because they don’t have a good planning strategy.
Poor planning leads to an unstructured answer with ideas popping up all over the
place and not really tying together. You'll find 3 stategies for your IELTS Speaking
Part 2 talk on these pages:
Reading out notes

Another classic mistake candidates make is to read out their notes rather than
talking naturally. This has several consequences.
If you read your notes, your speech will sound like ‘reading’ not ‘speaking’. It will
have unnatural fluency, sentence stress and pronunciation. This will not please the
examiner. They’re there to test your speaking skills, not your reading ability.
Focussing too closely on your notes while speaking may also cause you to move
quickly from one bullet point to the next without developing your ideas. You're likely
to reach the end with lots of time still to go and nothing more to say.
Use your notes as a guide only.
Don’t panic
Don’t be that candidate who completely wastes their planning time because they’re
convinced they don’t know anything about the subject they’ve been asked to talk
about and go into brain meltdown.
Most topics are related to everyday life and common experiences. I guarantee that I
could ask you about any subject in these categories and you could tell me at least
three or four things you know about it, even if the topic was something you believed
you knew nothing about. Three or four things are enough to create an answer.
Then you just need a few strategies for developing your talk around them. (Scroll up
to see the links to 3 planning methods and Part 2 Speaking sample or find them at
the bottom of the page.)
The examiner will not be expecting a degree level answer. They just want to know
what you know about the topic – a few facts and your own thoughts, opinion and
feelings.
The content of your talk is not nearly as important as how you say it, that is, your
fluency, grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary.
Be confident that you can deal with any topic because you can.
TIPS FOR IELTS SPEAKING PART 2

Now you know all the basic information about IELTS Speaking part 2. Now it’s time
for some tips.
1. Make notes before you talk

The examiner will give you one minute to prepare your talk. You should write down
some notes. Write down a list of words related to what you want to say, or draw a
mind map. If you have to think about what to say when you’re talking, you will not be
able to think about your language, so you are more likely to make grammatical
mistakes. It’s also very common for candidates to panic when they are talking, and
forget what to say; if you have notes, you won’t forget what to say if you panic.
MOST candidates don’t do this well. They write just 2 or 3 things on the paper, and
they spend most of the preparation time thinking about what to say. The problem
with this approach is that as soon as they start speaking, they forget what to say! SO
MAKE DETAILED NOTES! Practise making notes as part of your preparation for the
speaking test.
2. Memorise a good opener

Starting your talk is difficult, so memorise an opening phrase.
Here are some good examples:
 “I’d like to talk about…”

 “Well, there are many _________ I could talk about, but I suppose the __________
I’ve experienced/had is/was….”
(The second example will help you get a better score than the others because the language is
more advanced, but use the first example if the second sentence is too difficult to remember.)
For example, if your topic is “describe your favourite teacher”, you could say:
 “I’d like to talk about my favourite teacher.”

 “Well, there are many good teachers who I could talk about, but I suppose the
favourite teacher I’ve had was…”
If your topic is “describe a beautiful place to visit in your country”, you could say
 “I’d like to talk about a beautiful place in my country.”

 “Well, there are many beautiful places which I could talk about, but I suppose the
most beautiful place I’ve been to is….”
A good opener will impress the examiner, but the next tip will impress him even
more…
3. Paraphrase the topic

When referring to the topic, don’t use the words from the topic card. Instead, use
your own words. This is called paraphrasing.
So, if the topic is “describe a beautiful place to visit in your country” don’t say:
“I’m going to describe a beautiful place to visit in China.”
Instead, say, for example:
“I’m going to talk about a stunning destination, which people can travel to in the north-east
of China.”
Paraphrasing lets you show the examiner how much vocabulary and grammar you
know. In the paraphrase above, I changed “place” to “destination” and changed the
adjective “beautiful” to “stunning“. I also used a relative clause “which people can
travel to…”. I also added in some extra information: “the north-east of China.”
Remember, together, grammar and vocabulary make up 50% of your marks, so it is
very important to use a wide range of grammar and vocabulary.
4. Keep talking
Try to keep talking…and talking…and talking. Don’t worry about the time. The
examiner will stop you after 2 minutes.
5. Don’t speak too quickly

Try to speak at a steady, natural pace. DO NOT speak too quickly – this will hold
down your band score for pronunciation. Also, don’t speak too slowly. This will hold
down your band score for Fluency and Coherence.
6. Decide what to talk about quickly (Lie if you need to!)

Sometimes it’s difficult to think of something to talk about. Let’s say you have to talk
about your favourite teacher. Remember you have a minute to prepare your talk.
The wrong way: spend your preparation time thinking about who your favourite
teacher was.
Was it Mr Smith? Or was it Mrs Jones? What was Mrs Jones like? She was quite interesting,
but Mr Smith was quite kind. Oh, but what about Miss Brown, she was quite nice. I’ll talk
about her…..
Finally, with only 10 seconds before you must talk, you suddenly remember Mr
Black.
Oh, Mr Black. I remember! Yes, he was fantastic! I’ll talk about him!
But now you have to start talking!
The right way: choose a nice teacher you had. Any nice teacher will do. Then write
down some words to describe him, and maybe some words to help you describe a
story about him that you remember.
Being honest is not one of the assessment criteria. The examiner doesn’t care who your
favourite teacher was. The examiner only cares about the language you use in your
talk, your pronunciation and your fluency and coherence.
In fact, you could even lie. You could invent an amazing teacher to talk about.
However, it is better to think of someone or something from your own experience
because it’s usually easier to talk about, but if you can’t think of something to talk
about from your own experience, invent it.
The key thing is to decide what to talk about in the first few seconds, then make
notes about it.
7. Don’t repeat the same information

Repeating the same phrases or information will show your limited vocabs and your
inability to develop your ideas. Don’t ever say the following phrases/sentences:
 “As I have just said earlier”

 “As I mentioned before”
 Etc.
8. Ask for clarification

If you don’t understand a word on the topic card or your task, you can ask the
examiner to explain. But, don’t just say “I don’t understand.” Instead, use some more
advanced phrases.
For example, you could say:
 “By…., do you mean…..?”

 “If I understand correctly, it means that….”
 “So, in other words, I should….”
 “So, is it ok if I talk about…?”
If you ask for clarification using good language, you will really impress your
examiner!
IMPORTANT: ask for clarification quickly. Ask BEFORE the examiner writes down
the time for the start of the 1 minute preparation. Otherwise the clarification will be
included in the 1 minute preparation time.

Tips For Ielts Speaking Part 2

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Tips For Ielts Speaking Part 2

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Tips For Ielts Speaking Part 2

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

THE PROBLEMS OF SPEAKING PART 2:

1) Don’t speak for the full 2 minutes.

2) Run out of things to say.

3) Have an unstructured talk.

4) Read their notes rather than speak naturally.

How long to speak for

Why people finish early

Reading out notes

Use your notes as a guide only.

TIPS FOR IELTS SPEAKING PART 2

1. Make notes before you talk

2. Memorise a good opener

Here are some good examples:

 “I’d like to talk about…”

 “I’d like to talk about my favourite teacher.”

 “I’d like to talk about a beautiful place in my country.”

3. Paraphrase the topic

“I’m going to describe a beautiful place to visit in China.”

Instead, say, for example:

5. Don’t speak too quickly

6. Decide what to talk about quickly (Lie if you need to!)

But now you have to start talking!

7. Don’t repeat the same information

 “As I have just said earlier”

8. Ask for clarification

For example, you could say:

 “By…., do you mean…..?”

You might also like