Duolingo English Test Speaking Course - 1 hour of speaking lessons, practice all the speaking tasks

hi everyone i'm luke an expert duolingo english test teacher and today we're going to talk about the speaking tasks specifically the independent or the extended speaking task where you have to talk about a topic for around 90 seconds and you have to do this three times in the test you also have to describe a picture that's a different task and if you want to find out more information about that hit this card here but this video is all about the extended speaking task where you've got to talk about a topic for around 90 seconds usually the topics are pretty simple things like work study music art etc but being able to talk about one of these topics for 90 seconds fluently is quite challenging so in today's video i'm going to give you some top tips to help you with this task but first let's take a look at what you've got to do exactly so these are the different types of speaking tasks you have to do in the duolingo test one task is describing a picture i did a long video on how to do this well find the link in the description then you have three independent speaking tasks two of these are introduced to you with written prompts and one is with an oral prompt oral just means through listening the written prompt looks like this you have between 20 and 30 seconds to prepare and you just click that record now button at the bottom when you're ready it says that you should speak for at least 30 seconds about the questions below and while that's true i highly recommend that you speak for longer so in this task you actually have 90 seconds to answer this question and like i mentioned i strongly recommend that you speak for at least 80 seconds because at the end of the day this is an english test where you're supposed to show off your english so the more you talk the more chance you have to use better vocabulary or advanced grammatical structures both of which will help you with your overall score so definitely keep this in mind try to speak for at least 80 seconds so when you're here after 30 seconds this next box in the corner will light up so you can click that as soon as you finished so that was the written prompt but you also have an oral prompt this is a lot harder so what happens here is that you actually get given a question or a prompt through listening so you have to listen and respond correctly to the question you hear of course this tests both your listening and speaking skills again for this task you have 90 seconds to speak and you can replay the question up to three times so if you want to listen to it again just click this speaker button but remember you only have three times to do this and when you've answered the question fully just click next and you can go on to the next question so just to remind you you have three extended speaking tasks in this test two with a written prompt and one with an oral prompt but the way you answer should be the same the oral prompt is just there to test your listening skills and to check how well you respond to a listening question okay so now let's take a look at my top tips for answering this task in the best way possible okay my top tip number one is to answer the prompts so on test day when you're doing this task you'll get a prompt like this talk about a book you recently read this is the main topic and then you'll have four questions to guide you through your answer i highly recommend that you go through all of these questions because talking for 90 seconds without these prompts can be very challenging so you can just simply go question to question to question to question and answer in them with lots of detail and that should take you to 90 seconds i've seen a lot of teachers talking about these prompts and how students should just ignore them and talk about their own story but to be honest i think it's much easier just to answer these questions so i know that's a really simple tip but sometimes the simple tips are the best so be sure to answer those prompts tip number two is to remember to always answer the questions but then expand on your answer again remember that this is an english proficiency test so you have to show off your english so you shouldn't just answer the question in a simple way you should answer and expand so how can you expand well you can elaborate that means talk more about your answer you can give your opinion or you can give someone else's opinion and you can also give some examples so i know this is another simple tip but you'd be surprised how many students just give a simple answer and they think that's enough but it's not remember you always have to give a simple answer but then expand on it because you want to show the examiner or in this case the computer that you're really good at english so remember answer and expand answer and expand so let me show you an example so let's say this is our topic talk about a book that you read recently and the prompts are what was the title what was it about how did you first hear of it what did you like or dislike about it so for the first question what was the title this is an example of how you can answer a simple question like this but expand on your answer to show off your english so this is my example a book that i've read recently which really inspired me was called surely you're joking mr fireman by the famous physicist dr fyman this book is a collection of personal stories both hilarious and thought-provoking from dr fyman's life so let's take a look at this the question what was the title is a really simple question and a very simple answer would just be a book that i've read recently was called surely a joke in mr feynman if i just stop there i'm only answering the question but i'm not elaborating so as you can see in this example all of the parts in green are the parts which i elaborated remember elaborate means to give more information so the parts that i elaborated i said which really inspired me and then i added a little bit more detail about the book so this is a very simple way to elaborate about this topic the book you can talk about the author or about the genre of the book and what were your reactions to the book so this is a good way of expanding the simple question what was the title now let's take a look at the second question which is what was it about so this is also an example answer and again i elaborate it so let me show you this book is mainly about all the life lessons that dr feinman learnt in his amazing life for instance do things that you love as best as you can as this book is a collection of stories from his life rather than a novel it doesn't really have a plot each chapter covers one important part of his life such as his time at university or the time when he met albert einstein which in my opinion was the most fascinating chapter so in this section in order to elaborate i gave examples i said for instance do things that you love as best as you can and at the bottom i said such as his time at university or the time when he met albert einstein so here such as provides examples to what i said earlier each chapter covers one important part of his life so as you can see from these two adding examples is a great and easy way to elaborate then the last part which is in purple is a way to elaborate by showing your opinion there are lots of different phrases you can use to share your opinion in my opinion is the simplest one but you could also say as far as i'm concerned or in my point of view these are just some examples so i hope this showed you some good ways to expand on your simple answers now let's take a look at tip number three which is transition words using transition words will help your answer to sound more fluent and more coherent and there are lots of different transition words you can use if you want to move on to the next question it's a good idea to use one of these transition words you can say okay turn into the next question moving on to question three or as for question three these are simple and smooth ways to transition from question to question you can also use these transition words when you are given your answer so you can signpost your ideas by saying first second third or firstly secondly thirdly when you want to give more information you can say what's more furthermore or moreover and when you're about to finish your answer you can say finally also if you forgot to mention something important but would like to mention it at the end you can say one more thing i'd like to talk about is and then talk about your idea so remember it's important to use transition words like these because it'll make your answer a lot more smooth and make your answer sound a lot more organized so practice using these okay moving on to my final tip which is tip number four this tip is very useful and it is to look out for question triggers so what is a question trigger well different questions have words which require a certain type of answer so here are six common questions you might see on this speaking task on the duolingo english test and the words in green are the trigger they are triggers because they should trigger a certain answer or a certain response and that response usually has a specific grammar structure you should use so let's take a look the first one how did you first hear of this book so of course the word did is a past tense so when you answer this question you have to respond using one of the past tenses so the past simple the past continuous past perfect used to that one's quite straightforward the next question will you read a similar book this one refers to the future so again you have to respond using one of the correct future tenses will going to the present continuous the future perfect or the future continuous be sure to use the correct tense for the idea that you are talking about now they get a little bit more tricky so this question is quite common how long have you been doing something for this you need to respond using the present perfect continuous the present continuous is have plus being plus a verb with ing and we use this to talk about an ongoing action that started in the past so if a question says how long have you been doing something you should respond like this i've been doing this for three years four years or whatever but you have to respond using the correct tense so pay attention to the question four is particularly difficult and a lot of students lose points by answering this question wrong this question is a hypothetical question they usually come in the wood form so would you recommend this book so to answer this correctly you have to respond in a hypothetical way so you could say something like yes i would recommend this book because i thought it was really inspiring so if a question has wood in it you shouldn't answer using the simple past so for this question would you recommend the book to someone you shouldn't say yes i did or yes i will you should respond in a hypothetical way for example yes i would recommend this book because i found it very interesting or no i don't think i would recommend this book because it wasn't very good you could also use if sentences here too because if sentences are hypothetical so a simple answer would be sure if someone asked me about this book i would recommend it so definitely pay attention for the wood questions and the last two are opinion questions for example why questions or what do you or what did you like or dislike about something these questions expect you to share your opinion so you should use opinion phrases like in my opinion from my point of view as far as i'm concerned let's see how this is used in a real example so let's use the same prompt as earlier talk about a book that you read recently and we'll answer this question how did you first hear of it so i could say turn into the next question the first time i heard of this book was on a podcast where two people were talking about the most influential books that they've ever read even though i hadn't heard of dr feyman then the way they talked about him was amazing so as soon as i finished listening to the podcast i went straight out to the bookstore to buy the book so as you can see here the question how did you first hear of it required an answer using the past tense but i started off by saying turning to the next question remember this was a transition word this is a good way to move from one question to the next one and then throughout my answer i use the different past tenses hurt is a simple past tense we're talking about is the past continuous hadn't heard was the past perfect and talked finished and went are the past simple definitely practice using all the different past tenses in a story like this because it'll help you get a higher score in grammatical accuracy and complexity okay so those were some of my top tips for answering the 90-second extended speaking on the duolingo english test just to remind you they were answer the prompts answer and expand use transition words and look out for question triggers and now it's your turn i'm going to give you a question prompt and 90 seconds to answer this is a real question from the duolingo english test definitely try to answer this question through speaking for 90 seconds but if you want me to give you some feedback write your answer below in the comments and i'll check okay are you ready let's go so how did you find that 90 seconds is quite long isn't it but i hope my top tips helped you to answer this question fluently and with a lot more information in order to help you get a better score okay and that's it from me today thank you for watching i hope this was helpful and i'll see you next time take care hi guys i'm luke an expert duolingo english test teacher and today we're going to look at the read aloud question type this question type assesses your literacy and conversation skills so if these are areas you're struggling with this video will be really helpful for you i'm going to go over some of the key points give you some useful tips and at the end show you some examples so let's get right to it okay so let's get started with the key points of the read aloud task this is what this question type looks like when you take the test and as you can see from this example the sentence isn't very long and when you take this test you will have it around seven times in the whole test i've taken the duolingo test two times and the first time i had it six times and the second time i had it seven times so just know you will probably have to do this around seven times and you only have 20 seconds to complete this task that's actually quite short so this is a sample video from the practice test on the duolingo english test website and this shows you how the test is formatted as soon as the question appears the clock will start ticking like i mentioned you have 20 seconds i recommend that you spend the first five to seven seconds reading this silently in your head as preparation and then when you're ready click record now then you read the sentence out loud and when you have finished you click next this all happens really quickly 20 seconds is very short so as soon as you see this task you have to be mentally ready before i go on if you think this video is useful please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel it really does help me a lot okay back to it and like i mentioned before this tests your reading and speaking skills so in the sub scores on the duolingo english test that would be your literacy and conversation sub scores and you're scored on three things content fluency and pronunciation and that's what we're going to do in this video i'm going to show you the different ways to improve your score in these three aspects content fluency and pronunciation by the end of this video you'll know exactly how to answer this question type so let's get started with content so for content it's quite simple you simply just have to read exactly what's written down however some students make mistakes so these are my tips i call them the three don'ts first don't add words sometimes for some reason students when they're reading this they actually add an extra word if you do that you will lose points for content for example some student might say if you need help to get in another job i'll help you with that so avoid adding extra words the second don't is don't omit words omit simply means skip sometimes students skip words when they're reading on test day a lot of students are very nervous and they try to read too quickly if you try to read too quickly you're more likely to omit or skip a word so be careful with that and the third don't is replace don't replace words replace here means change you can change the word completely or you could change the form of the word for example if you need help getting another job i'll helping you with that of course that is wrong you can't do that you have to be careful to read exactly what is written down so that's it for content it's quite straightforward you have to read exactly what is written down however on test day when the clock is ticking and you're feeling nervous a lot of students make these mistakes they add they admit or they change a word so you have to be careful not to do that because you will lose points to overcome this i recommend that you practice this task a lot you can find your own sentences give yourself a time limit and read it out loud this will get you used to the time pressure on this question type okay that's content done now let's take a look at fluency fluency is the most complicated part of this task so pay attention here when thinking about fluency you have to consider these four aspects speed sentence stress and rhythm connected speech and pausing these four aspects all contribute to your fluency and are all equally important let's talk about speed first a lot of students ask me do i have to speak really quickly to get a high score on this question type and the answer is simply no you don't have to speak really quickly of course speed and fluency are related so it is a little bit important but if you speak too quickly it makes it very difficult for you to be understood and on top of that you might lose points on content as well because if you're focused just on speaking quickly you might do some of those don'ts you might add change or omit a word so my recommendation is to just speak at your natural pace not too slow but also not too quickly like i said you don't get extra points just for speaking quickly okay well now let's take a look at sentence stress and rhythm sentence stress and rhythm are closely related and there are three basic rules we need to follow first remember that content words are stressed content words in a sentence can be the main verb the noun adjective adverbs or the negative auxiliaries like don't and or can't these are the words that are usually stressed in a sentence on the other hand function words are not stressed function words are basically the grammar words these include pronouns prepositions articles conjunctions and auxiliary verbs in the positive form so these grammar words are not stressed only stress the content words in terms of rhythm the time between the stressed words is about the same and this creates the rhythm in our sentences english is what we call a stress times language that means that we place a lot of stress in our sentences on key words and this drives rhythm in our sentences some other languages are syllable times that means that they don't put extra stress on particular words each syllable gets the same amount of stress but english is a stress-timed language so you have to remember to put stress on the content words and the function words or the grammar words are typically unstressed so let's take a look at an example here's an example where do you think the stress is in this question do you know if he's busy this morning so this question had three stressed words no busy and morning as you can see these are the content words in this question so the content words get the stress one more time do you know if he's busy this morning so far under fluency we've looked at speed sentence stress and rhythm i hope you see how important these are now let's take a look at another point which is connected speech connected speech is a massive massive topic and it would take a really long video to cover each element of connected speech so in this video i'm just gonna cover three really important aspects i'll make a longer video on connected speech in the future but for now let's take a look at these aspects so the three aspects i want to look at are weak and strong forms of words contractions and linking i think these three are essential for getting a good score on this question type okay so let's start with strong and weak forms the strong form of a word is just what we discussed earlier with sentence stress the content words get strong forms they are stressed but a lot of words take the weak form when words take the weak form they use this sound here and usually it's the function the grammar words that take this weak form let me show you some examples of this weak form but in the weak form is more like but or just ba can is can have is and is a is the than done it's really important to remember that these function words these grammar words they almost always take the weak form when we're speaking if you make them strong then it actually can change the meaning of the sentence which sometimes can be useful but on this duolingo english test it's not that helpful so remember that these function words will take the weak form let me show you an example so here's an example star wars is good but it's not as good a movie as people say so did you notice the four examples of weak words in this sentence they were as uh and us again notice here that these are all the function or grammar words so they take the weak form star wars is good but it's not as good a movie as people say so i know this video is a bit complicated so far but this question type the read aloud question type does test your fluency and so far all of these elements are related to fluency if you find it confusing please go back and watch it again now let's take a look at another one which is contractions contractions is a bit simpler okay so basically contractions are when two words join together here are some quick and easy examples i will becomes isle he is he's he has he's she would she'd we have we've it had it of course there are more combinations than the ones i've just shown you but these are the most common it's usually when a pronoun and a function word join together i've noticed that sometimes in a duolingo english test they actually put the contractions in writing so you will see i'll as in i apostrophe ll this is really helpful so you don't have to make a guess you just have to read it the way it's written but other times it's not like that and you have to know these contractions so you can read it very naturally okay now let's look at the last element of connected speech and it is lincoln okay so for linkin let's just take a look at an example here's the same sentence that i showed you earlier where is the link in in this sentence star wars is good but it's not as good a movie as people say so i hope you noticed five different examples of linkin here now this is how linkin works when one word ends in a consonant sound but the other begins in a vowel that consonant links to the next word for example wars is wars is star wars is good star wars is good this rule is quite simple and it's found a lot in other languages too however linking can be a bit more complicated take a look at the last one movie yaz so movie of course ends in a vowel e and as begins in another vowel which is the sure when one word ends in a vowel and the other begins in a vowel then we have to add a consonant in between the consonant can either be ya or in british english also ra so in this example movie yas ya is the sound that links these two words to quickly review for lincoln there are two types consonant to vowel and vowel to vowel for consonant to vowel the last consonant links to the next vowel for vowel to vowel we have to include another sound that sound can be or in british english so that's connected speech done for this task there is a lot more to connected speech and like i said i will make a video on that in the future but for now definitely try to learn these three things so now let's take a look at the last element of fluency and that is pausing in my experience a lot of students overthink pausing especially for this task on the duolingo english test because it is a reading task when you're reading a sentence out loud you need to pay attention to the punctuation marks this will show you when to pause most typically the punctuation mark you're looking for is the comma when you see a comma it is an indication for you to pause listen to me say this sentence if you need help getting another job i'll help you with that this comma was an indicator for me to pause here when you pause don't pause too long just pause slightly listen to me say this one more time if you need help getting another job i'll help you with that so did you notice that it was just a slight pause however it was a pause and you need to be sure to do that so the rule for pausing is really simple when you're reading just make sure to pause for a short while whenever you see a comma or a period mostly in this question type you'll only be given one sentence to read and if that sentence is long it's very likely to include a comma or two so use those commas as indications of when to pause okay and that's fluency done we looked at speed sentence stress connected speech and pausing all of these elements are essential to fluency so when you practice make sure to pay attention to all of these now let's take a look at pronunciation in this section i'm going to focus on the pronunciation of single words rather than whole sentences whole sentences is more in the fluency category so let's take a look here so for pronunciation there are four main elements we need to think about vowel sounds is a very important one in particular long and short vowels for example the long and short e sit and seat fit feet and so on all consonant sounds are very important in addition to consonant sounds you should think about consonant clusters this is when some consonants join together for example stra strike dra drink spla splash this can be really tricky to pronounce for a lot of students so definitely practice the consonant clusters and the last one is word stress make sure that when you learn new words in english you learn where the stress is in the particular word there are so many rules for word stress too much for this video but in the future i will make a video on word stress for you okay so those were the three elements you're gonna be scored on content fluency and pronunciation now let's take a look at some examples i'm going to show you a couple examples give you 20 seconds to read it out loud then i will read it i want you to listen and repeat after me and then we'll study the examples together sound good well let's get started if i'd known about the party i would have come if i'd known about the party i would have come in this sentence there are some useful features i had gets contracted to become i'd known is stressed and the last sound in known is that links to about known about known about the takes the weak form to become the party is stressed the comma indicates a place you should take a break i would have can be connected to become idev or you can say it i would have both are acceptable and the last word come is the main verb so it does get the stress one more time if i'd known about the party i would have come i'll ask him to come over as soon as possible i'll ask him to come over as soon as possible in this sentence i will gets contracted to become isle the l sound at the end of will links to ask and ask gets stressed so altogether it sounds like this i'll ask i'll ask two takes the weak form come on over link come over come over over is also stressed as takes the weak form as soon is stressed and as is pronounced us the last sound in soon is the n and that links to us to become sunnas sunas and the last word possible is stressed one more time all together i'll ask him to come over as soon as possible and that's it for this video i hope this was helpful if you thought so please give it a thumbs up and if you have any questions you can write your question below in the comments or join my facebook group and then you can chat with me there okay that's it thank you very much take care hi guys i'm luke an expert duolingo english test teacher and today we're going to talk about one of the speaking tasks on this test the task we're going to look at is describing a picture orally so through speaking and this is probably one of the hardest tasks on the whole test it's difficult because you have to describe something in a lot of detail and you've got to do this spontaneously without much planning so it really tests your fluency your pronunciation and your organizational skills it's pretty hard but in this lesson we're going to go over a simple method you can use to make this task easier for you but guys if you're new to my channel hi i'm teacher luke and i make english lessons like this to help students like you improve your english so if this is something you're interested in hit that like button and subscribe as well so what happens in this task well firstly you're given one image an image like this this this or this and you have to describe one of these images in a lot of detail so being able to describe an image is not as easy as it seems a lot of students that do this they start off quite well but then they get stuck because they either run out of things to say or they don't know how to organize their answer that's why learning a method like the one i'm going to show you today is extremely helpful but before i show you my method let's look at how this task is actually scored so to get a high score on this task you have to think about three things content fluency and pronunciation so let's take a look at content first content refers to how well you describe the image so the first point is about labeling versus describing do you actually describe the image or do you just label it if you just label an image you'll get a very low score let me show you what labeling means so let's say this is our image some people will just answer this task like this this picture has two people in it there is a building there is a bench there is a park there are leaves on the grass there is a path and so on this will not get you a high score on this task you have to be able to describe the picture not just label it and you have to use descriptive language when describing we'll talk more about that later next on the content section we have vocabulary range and precision and grammatical range and accuracy so for vocabulary range do you use topic related vocabulary adverbs of place and also descriptive adjectives and do you use the correct grammar to describe the image of course this is a test of your english ability so it's not surprising that vocabulary and grammar are scored quite highly on this task okay moving on next we have fluency this refers to how smoothly you describe the image so for this you should think about your speaking speed smoothness and phrasing you also want to avoid hesitations and repetitions i've seen a lot of students who answer this task they get a little bit stuck when they're speaking so they say uh a lot or they simply just pause during a sentence this is what we mean by hesitation and repetition is starting a sentence but then not finishing it and then starting again students usually do this when they think they've made a mistake but it's really important that you avoid these two things as they do affect your fluency score and the third criteria is pronunciation this refers to how clearly you describe the image to get a high score you're looking for native like pronunciation which means that you can be easily understood by a native english speaker so things like pronunciation of phonemes connected speech and also your intonation you should definitely focus on these three things in order to improve your pronunciation score okay then let's get to my method of answering this task this method will help you to organize your answers step by step so on test day when you're taking the test you don't have to think oh my god how am i going to even answer this question by using this method you'll know exactly how to answer so on test day all you have to do is think about the actual image and describe that image correctly so what's the method well here it is okay we start off with planning you have to analyze the picture you should be thinking of questions like what is in the picture what is happening etc but remember don't speak here then we have general summary which can be done in one or two sentences then number two describe the location this is the most important part part three we have add detail and four speculate only do speculate if you have enough time okay so let's get started by talking about the planning stage so how do you plan well let's take a look so let's say this is our image that we have to describe on test day first i recommend that you analyze the picture in your head without speaking you should ask yourself these questions what do i see in the image and what is the most important thing in the image usually if there are people in the image then people will be the most important so in this image i see a man and a woman i see a bench i see a building in the background maybe a church i see a park some trees a path and another building on the left which looks like it's under construction the most important thing is of course the man and the woman and you should notice that they look upset angry or irritated at something so that's the most important thing in this image so remember to do all your planning without speaking you have to just think in your head of course on a duolingo english test you're not allowed to have a pen and paper so just do this by thinking then you can start speaking you want to start your description with a general summary usually one or two sentences you should ask yourself what's the most important thing in your planning stage you've already answered the question what's the most important thing so you should describe and talk about that important thing you can begin your sentences like this this picture shows this image shows or in this picture there is or in this image there are you should also include a little bit of detail in your summary and the grammar you should use is either the present simple or the present continuous so let's again take a look at this image can you think of one sentence you can use for a general summary well i have a couple answers for you so my first answer is simply this image shows a man and a woman do you think this is a good answer well not really i would say this is a poor answer even though the sentence is grammatically correct and it does give a general summary this sentence just doesn't include enough information or enough detail remember that this is an english language test so your job is to show off all your english if you just use simple sentences like this then the duolingo english test computer can't give you a good score because it doesn't know how good your english is just because you're using simple sentences so you want to include more detail in your sentences next example this image shows a man and a woman sitting on a bench is this good well this is not bad this of course includes more detail sitting on a bench and this is considered a complex sentence we actually call this a reduced relative clause in its full form you can say this image shows a man and a woman who are sitting on a bench so this sentence gives more detail and it's not bad but i still think you can do better okay so the next sentence has a little bit more information this image shows a man and a woman sitting on a bench in a park this again is a little bit better because it includes more information it includes the location where the man and woman are they are in a park however i still think you can do better than this so take a look at my last example this image shows a man and a woman sitting next to each other on a bench in a park and they look upset about something so i think this would be considered a very good answer because it includes a lot of information and actually it talks about the emotions of the people in this picture of course the man and the woman look very upset so you should mention that this sentence also includes some prepositions like next to each other this type of prepositional phrase is very useful in an activity like this okay so that was the first part of this method it is to give a general summary of the picture remember that you should include some detail in your general summary because again this is an english test so you have to show off your english so be prepared to answer in more detail than you probably would in real life okay so part one is probably the easiest part of my method now let's take a look at the most difficult and the most important and that is part two which is describe the location so in part two we have to think about what is in the image and where it is positioned overall this task of describing an image is a descriptive task so you have to use descriptive language and describe where things are positioned in the picture and it's very important how you organize your answer there are three ways to do this we can go from left to right or right to left top to bottom or bottom to top or from far to near or near to far in your planning stage i highly recommend that you pick one of these and stick to it throughout the whole task also you should use different adverbs of place and different adjectives to describe the objects or the things in the picture adverbs of place are a little bit tricky so but here's an image to help you adverbs of place are usually spoken in these types of phrases so we have on the top or above at the top in the center in the corner at the bottom under beneath underneath and below we also have things like to the left to the right and there are lots of extra phrases you can use too for example in the background or in the foreground in the background and in the foreground are essential phrases if you want to describe the picture from far to near or near to far the background would be far and the foreground would be near we also have in the front of directly opposite exactly in the middle of roughly in the middle of in close proximity to just above and parallel too these are just some of the phrases you can use to describe the location of things in the image there are lots more and i promise i will make a whole lesson just on these phrases for you but give me some time okay so again let's take a look at this image how could we describe the location of things in this image well here's a sample answer so for this i use the far to near approach i started off by describing things in the background and then i moved slowly to the foreground or the front and this helped me to describe this image in a very coherent and natural way so this was my answer there is a tall white building that looks like a church which is in the background in the top right hand corner there are some people waiting outside in front of that building there is a narrow path which leads to another building on the left that building is under construction there is also a small park in front of the white building that has several trees and lots of crisp autumn leaves covering the grass the two young adults are sitting on a brown bench in the foreground of this image so as you can see from my example i described this image from far to near and i use lots of different adjectives they are the words in purple we have tall white narrow small crisp autumn young brown and i use lots of adverbials of place which are in prepositional phrases so these are the ones in green in the background in the top right hand corner in front of on the left and in the foreground so using lots of adjectives and adverbials of place will make your answer very descriptive which is the aim of this task the task is to describe an image so again you have to use descriptive language and don't forget this is the most important part of this task so make sure you take your time and do this part very well and after you finish part two then you can move on to part three which is add detail so here you add detail to the important parts of the image don't add detail to everything so ask yourself what is the most important part of course in the image we've been describing the two people are the most important parts so we want to describe those two people for vocabulary you want to use things like action verbs so you want to describe what the people are doing and of course you should use adjectives to describe the nouns in more detail and adverbs to give more detail and more information about the actions or the verbs that are taking place and for the grammar again you can just use the present simple and present continuous so let's take a look at this image one more time so i'll show you a few answers i want you to think if they are good or not so i could just say the two people both look sad so i would consider this a very poor answer because it's too simple and not descriptive enough also the word sad is a very simple word remember on how you are scored one of the aspects you're scored on is vocabulary range and sad is a very high frequency and common word so you won't get a very high score for using sad so what other words can we use instead of sad well have a look at my second answer the two people both look irritated and they're not talking to each other so this is better it's not great but it is better irritated is a better word than sad for this picture you could also use words like annoyed or frustrated also this answer is better because i added more information and i use the conjunction and so and they are not talking to each other so this is better but again i think you could do better than this so take a look at my third answer the two people both look irritated and they're not talking to each other the man is holding his forehead with both hands and staring down at the pavement while the woman has her head in her right hand and looking in the opposite direction to the man of course this is a much better answer than the previous two it goes into a lot more detail and is very descriptive about the actions that are taking place so it definitely adds more detail to the most important elements of the picture which is the two people so again try to remember that this is a test of your english skill so you have to show that you are able to do things in english so always remember to answer and elaborate answer and elaborate so let's move on to the fourth part of my method and it is to speculate to speculate simply means to guess about what is happening or what has already happened before i talk about this in more detail i want to let you know that if you have run out of time by now and you don't have time to speculate that's okay this is probably the least important part of this task remember this task is a descriptive task so your main job is to describe the image and describe the most important parts of the image but if you still have some time left then you can speculate so let's talk about that so firstly don't speculate about everything again just speculate about the most important parts of the picture so you want to ask two questions why is something happening now the grammar you can use to speculate about now the present you could use modal verbs might may could must etc also you can use probably or i suppose the most common one is just maybe but i recommend you use one of the previous ones first because maybe is a very high frequency word and to get a higher score you want to use lower frequency and more advanced grammar such as modal verbs probably or suppose you could also think about what happened in the past and how that past has affected the picture now so for this you want to use the past modal verbs like might have or must have so here are four examples you could say they could be arguing about something very important because she probably wants to end the relationship because blah blah blah they must have discussed a sensitive issue because blah blah blah they might have just broken up with each other because blah blah blah the ones in green could be arguing and probably are speculating about the present so about now the ones in purple must have discussed might have just broken up are speculating about the past but that past is effect in the present right now okay so that's the simple method you can use it's important to think about a method of answering these types of questions because on test day you don't want to be thinking oh my god how do i even answer this question you want to already know how you're going to answer so that you can just look at the question or in this case an image and answer that question directly using a method that you've already practiced that will make your life so much easier so a quick sum up we have the planning stage this is about 5-15 seconds of thinking remember you should think about what's in the picture and what is the most important thing about the picture but don't speak during this stage then the first thing you should do is give a general summary you should do this in one or two sentences you can go into some detail but don't go into too much the second part is the most important here you want to describe the location remember to use adverbs of place when doing this part three you want to add detail to the important part of the picture and part four if you have time you can make some speculations about what has happened or what is happening in the picture this is my sample answer you can pause this and read it and i'll also copy and paste this into the description below okay now it's your turn i'm gonna show you an image and i'm gonna give you three minutes just like in the test to describe this image definitely try this orally by yourself and if you want some feedback from me write your answer below in the comments and i'll check it for you okay let's go okay so that's it from me today i hope this was helpful let me know what you think of this method in the comments below and if you haven't already be sure to like and subscribe to my channel okay i'll see you next time bye hi i'm luke an expert duolingo english test teacher and today we're gonna take a look at the name and image question type for this question type you have three seconds to identify the object in the image obviously three seconds is not a long time so this task can get quite stressful so in this video i'm gonna help you to get the best score you can get first we're gonna look at some of the key points of this question type then i'm gonna give you some really useful tips to help you get the best score you can get and lastly i'm going to give you lots and lots of practice with 30 different images so let's get started with the key points so what are some of the key points for this question type firstly like i mentioned you only have three seconds per picture to identify what is in the object three seconds is so short and because it's so short it really does put you under a lot of pressure so make sure when you're doing this question that you stay calm under pressure the next key point is that you will get around six pictures one after another this is quite different than the practice test so that point is really important because on the practice test you only have to identify one image and then you move on to another question type however in the real test you have around six images one after another and because you only have three seconds per image it means that these images come at you really really quickly and this can cause you a lot of stress and put you under a lot of pressure so it's really important that you know that you will have around six images to identify one after another not just one like on the practice test and just like many of the other question types in the duolingo english test you can have this question type anywhere from three to seven times during the whole test i've taken the duolingo english test two times and each time i had this question type three times but on the duolingo english test website it does say that you could get this anywhere from three to seven times during the whole test which means that you will probably have to identify a lot of images throughout the test so how can you do this task really well let me now show you some really useful tips to help you get the best score you can get so for this question type i have four very useful tips for you the first tip is the most important and it is that if you want to get the best score possible then you have to say exactly what is in the image so let's look at an example what exactly is the object in this image well to get the best score here you would need to say screwdriver that is exactly what this item is it's a screwdriver so remember your job is to name exactly what the object in the image is before i continue if you think this video is helpful for you please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel it really does help me a lot okay back to it my next tip is that there might be more than one correct answer many objects in english have more than one name so at times there might be more than one correct answer here's an example what's the name of this object well there are two correct answers you can say motorbike or motorcycle in english we have two names for this object motorbike and motorcycle and both would get you the top score for this question so far i've shown you quite easy examples so you might be thinking great this question type is super easy for me however some of the pictures might be a bit difficult so what can you do if you have no idea what the name of the object in the image is well i have two useful tips for you here tip number three to remember that anything is better than nothing what i mean is that you should always try to say something if you say nothing then you are guaranteed to get the lowest score but if you say something even if it's a guess then you might get some points for it and a really useful tip to help you to say something is to learn some category words for example for this image the best answer is screwdriver that's exactly what this object is however if you don't know the name of this then you can use a category word such as tool now this won't get you the best score but it will get you some points and it is definitely better than nothing another example the best score for this object would be pineapple because that's exactly what this object is but a better than nothing answer would be fruit of course here fruit is the category word so what are some other category words you can use well let's take a look so these are some we have food transportation technology tool animal pet clothing jewelry plant fruit vegetable object or item so the purpose for learning these category words is to help you deal with the pressure remember that you will have around six images to identify one after another and if you don't know one of them you might start feeling quite stressed so instead of worrying about it just use a category would and just to clarify category words will not get you the highest score but using them is a lot better than saying nothing so those were my useful tips for this question type now let's do some practice activities i've prepared five practice tests for you and each practice test contains six images just like in the real test i'll give you three seconds to answer each image and at the end we'll go through the answers together okay are you ready well let's get started with practice test one number one best answers refrigerator fridge and perhaps freezer better than nothing appliance number two best answers mouse computer mouse better than nothing technology equipment three best answer mirror better than nothing furniture home accessory for best answer violin better than nothing instrument five best answers paintbrush brush better than nothing tool equipment six best answer pear better than nothing fruit food so that was practice test one done i hope you did well you have four practice tests left in this video please let me know all of your scores below in the comments i'm really curious to see how well you do okay now let's jump into practice test two practice test two answers best answers house plant potted plant plant better than nothing leaves flower two best answers stool bar stool kitchen stool better than nothing seat chair furniture three best dancers cardboard box box better than nothing paper box for best dancers ferry cruise ship ship or boat better than nothing transportation or water vessel five best answers motorbike motorcycle better than nothing transportation vehicle bike six best answers panda panda bear better than nothing bear animal practice test three answers best answer cucumber better than nothing vegetable food plant two best answer microwave better than nothing cooking appliance appliance three best answer eggplant aubergine better than nothing vegetable food for best dancer sofa couch settee better than nothing furniture five best answer oven mini oven toaster oven better than nothing cooking appliance appliance 6. best answer dice die better than nothing equipment accessory game practice test for answers one best answer avocado better than nothing vegetable food two best answers armchair chair better than nothing furniture three best answers belt leather belt better than nothing clothing accessory four best answers drums drum kit better than nothing instrument five best answer ring engagement ring diamond ring better than nothing jewelry six best answer hammer better than nothing tool practice test five answers one best answer whale better than nothing mammal animal two best answer watermelon better than nothing fruit food three best answer iguana better than nothing reptile animal 4. best answer jet fighter jet better than nothing airplane transportation five best answer tie necktie better than nothing clothing accessory six best answer tractor farm tractor better than nothing vehicle equipment and that's practice test one to five finished if you thought this was helpful please let me know below in the comments and i'll make more practice test questions just like this okay that's it from me today i hope this was helpful thank you for watching and i'll see you in my next video take care

Channel: English Teacher Luke - Duolingo English Test

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Keywords: duolingo english test practice, duolingo english test course, duolingo english test speaking, duolingo english test production, duolingo english test speaking practice, duolingo english test, duolingo english test preparation, duolingo english test practice material, duolingo english test production practice, DET production, how to improve my duolingo english test scores, improve production score duolingo english test, teacher luke, luke teacher

Id: jbcrOzZ1ykU

Length: 73min 15sec (4395 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 09 2020