Ielts speaking strategies

HOW DOES THE EXAMINER MARK YOUR SPEAKING TEST?

You need to know and understand the four categories. Let’s take a look at the IELTS speaking band descriptors as below:

1. 
   FLUENCY AND COHESION: The first category that the examiner is marking your speaking is the fluency and cohesion. They will be marking you on:
   

• 
  Do you speak smoothly without long pauses ?
  
• 
  Do you produce new information ?
  
• 
  Do you link your ideas by using fluency markers ?
  

Fluency markers are words like “however”, “furthermore”, “also”, “as a result”, “consequently”, “so”, “unfortunately”, “for example”, etc.
You should be fluent not only in part 1 speaking, but also in part 2 and part 3 speaking.
Note that fluency is not speed (not too fast and not too slow ). Unfortunately, some students are going to hurt their score when they try to speak too fast because their mouth is going too fast to their brain.

2. 
   LEXICAL RESOURCE (VOCABULARY): The second category that we should think about is Lexical Resource. You will be doing a lot of vocabularies in your IELTS speaking:
   

+ You should use linking vocabulary . You should use words that signal such as therefore, so, for example, nowadays, unfortunately, surprisingly, etc.
+ You should use topic vocabulary : vocabulary that we will use for particular topics, for example, topics about television, movies and books, technology, etc.
+ You should use phrasal verbs such as , look into, look onto, etc.
+ You should use a range of words. You don’t just want to say “it’s really good” or “it’s good” , or “everything is good” . You should make your answer better by using a range of synonym words of “good” . You can use “fantastic/ spectacular/awesome/tremendous, etc.”
+ You will not get a high score unless you use a wide range of vocabulary accurately , and you do some simple things like “ paraphrasing ” .
Paraphrasing is when you change the words that they ask you in the question. For example, if they ask you “do you like to read?” You should not say “yes, I love to read.” Although your grammar is ok, but if you want to get a better score you should say “yes, I love reading” . Certainly, you will get a better score because you have changed the verb form. Or you can say “yes, I love doing that” .
When you start to learn vocabulary words, it’s really good to build vocabulary as you keep going, as you keep studying, but you don’t have to sit down and try to study about 20 vocabulary words. Instead of doing that, it’s better if you try to only learn may be 1 or 2 words at a time, and then immediately start using the words. Don’t learn a list of 10 words, and then think “oh, I’ve just learnt the 10
words” . You shouldn’t do that. What you should do is to learn 2 words a day and start using those words right away by using those words often in sentences, then you will find that you learn words more deeply, and the more you do it, the quicker your brain processes new vocabulary.
Idioms: The other thing you should do if you want to get a higher score (7.0+) is that you need to be able to use a range of idioms . Idioms are phrases that don’t mean exactly what they sound what they mean , for example, “raining cats and dogs”, “become green with envy”, “cost an arm and a leg”, “ sleep like a baby” . Idioms are very challenging, and this is the one thing that almost students do not use in the final test. Why? Remember that when the examiner asks you certain questions, they are inviting certain answers. For example, if they ask you “ would you like to travel to another country?”
Note that, if the examiner asks you a question with the modal verb “would” , they are inviting you to give them an answer using a modal verb back, but there are no questions that the examiner asks you to give them an idiom. You have to create the opportunity to use idioms . You have to be confident enough in your English, quick enough with your vocabulary to be able to use idioms properly.
Use idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs for accurate collocations. The best way to learn phrases is reading . Reading will help you learn idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs for accurate collocations effectively. Reading will help you improve your writing score, listening score, and even your speaking score. These are things that you need to be aware of.
I don’t expect you to learn all of English idioms. I only expect you to learn a handle of them (5-6-7-8 idioms) that you know perfectly; that you think you are able to use them perfectly in the exam.
The use of idioms is a high-level skill. Using them properly, not overusing them.
Try to paraphrase as much as you can and use idioms in your speaking. Use fluency markers that you talk about.
You can boost your vocabulary by using paraphrasing, using idioms and you can improve your pronunciation. You can get up to 7.0+ with your pronunciation in 3 months if you practice your pronunciation every day.

LIST OF USEFUL IDIOMS: