IELTS Speaking Tips

Speaking Tips For IELTS EXAMنكات مهم جهت آزمون آيلتس

By: Behnam ForghaniIELTS Instructor

WWW.IELTSSECRETS.MIHANBLOG.COM

IELTS speaking band scores explained

• How is your IELTS speaking band score calculated? This is an important question for any IELTS candidate because many mistakes can be avoided by knowing what the examiner is looking for and how your speaking is graded. This post gives you a brief outline of the grading criteria, how band scores are calculated and how examiners typically grade the speaking.


The 4 grading criteria

• There are 4 criteria:

• Fluency and coherence: How fluently you speak and how well you link your ideas together

• Pronunciation: How accurate your pronunciation is• Lexical resource: How accurate and varied your

vocabulary is • Grammatical range and accuracy How accurate and

varied your grammar isWWW.IELTSSECRETS.MIHANBLOG.COM

What do these criteria mean?

• This is IELTS and IELTS examiners are trained to interpret these criteria in a particular way. In theory it should not matter where you take your test as all examiners grade consistently. I suggest you should spend time understanding the detail here as that way you can avoid many common mistakes.

• One main point is that in all the criteria a key idea is being clear. The main idea is whether you can express yourself clearly so that someone else can understand you.


Fluency

Fluency is a combination of:• speed of speech • length of answer • pausing correctly


Coherence is the ability to• expand your answers • answer the questions directly • add relevant detail to explain or illustrate your

answers • connect your sentences by using tenses and

connectors

Coherence


Common mistakes• You should note that very fast or very long

answers are not necessarily good, as you may be penalised for poor pronunciation or lack of coherence. In the speaking the main point is that you are able to express yourself clearly.

• Another common mistake is to not answer the question. This is where you will be penalised.


Pronunciation• The main point here is that your pronunciation is easy to

understand and whether your are able to make your meaning clear. Features of good pronunciation include:

• Basic word pronunciation • linked speech sounds • Correct sentence stress • Correct use of intonation (rising and falling) You should note that there is no need to have a

“British” or “American” accent.WWW.IELTSSECRETS.MIHANBLOG.COM

Lexical Resource (Vocabulary)

• Once again the key concept here is clarity: do you have enough words to express yourself clearly? This is judged by your ability to:

• have enough vocabulary to discuss a range of topics

• to use vocabulary accurately • be able to explain yourself when you do not

have the right word


Common Mistake

• A common mistake here is to use long words without really knowing what they mean.


Grammatical Range and Accuracy

There are two key points to understand here:• you need to avoid grammar mistakes

especially with your tenses

• you need to use a range of grammatical structures and you should not just use simple sentences all the time


When are they graded?• All 4 criteria are judged throughout

all 3 parts of the speaking test – so it is important to concentrate from beginning to end. Although your test will be recorded, you will almost certainly be graded in real time in the test by the examiner sitting in front of you.


How are band scores calculated?


All the criteria count equally• One mistake candidates make is to focus on

one or other of the criteria or forget about one altogether (normally cohesion and coherence). Why is this wrong? They all count equally.

• What happens is that you get a score out of 9 for each of the criteria, they are added together and then that score is divided by 4.


An example:• So let’s take an example. Here is someone who has

forgotten to think about coherence and hasn’t fully answered the question. S/he has good general English so does well in grammar and vocabulary, but sadly that is not enough.

• grammar 7 • vocabulary 7 • pronunciation 6 • coherence 4 • 7+7+6+4 = 24 and 24 divided by 4 equals 6. The message

is grammar and vocabulary are not enough – you need to focus on all the criteria throughout the exam.


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IELTS Speaking Tips