Hello, I'm Oli. Welcome to Oxford Online English. In this lesson, I'm going to give you some advice for the IELTS speaking exam.
In another lesson, we looked at IELTS writing, and how to approach it, and today we'll look at advice for the speaking test. First of all, use part one of the speaking test to relax and get comfortable.
You might be feeling nervous before your exam. That's completely normal. In part one, the examiner will ask you some simple questions, like questions about your job, about your hobbies or your home town, or something like that.
The questions should be quite easy to answer, so this is your chance to relax, get comfortable, and get used to the examiner's voice. If you can give good answers to the questions in part one, hopefully that will build your confidence and you'll feel more comfortable speaking in the exam.
Point two: use the bullet points in part two to structure your answer. In part two, the examiner will give you a topic, and you need to prepare a short speech on that topic.
Usually you need to speak for one or two minutes. Let's look at a sample question: "Describe something you own which is very important to you.
You should say: where you got it from, how long you've had it, what you use it for, and explain why it's important to you." All the questions in IELTS part two have the same form.
There's the main question, and then there are bullet points. Use the bullet points to help you plan your ideas and organise your answer.
Then, start with a simple intro sentence, something like: "I'd like to tell you about my '''," whatever it is. Then, try to add one or two sentences for each bullet point.
If you can add two sentences for each bullet point, that will probably fill the time which you need to speak. Of course, if you can add more, then that's better, but this should be your minimum goal.
