IELTS Speaking Test | Band 8 Philippines

nuemi was one of the members of englishprotips.com and we did a practice speaking test before she went to do her real ielts test now noemi needed a band 7 in the speaking test to be eligible to become a nurse in the uk however when she went to do her ielts speaking test she actually got a band 8. so as you can imagine she was totally ecstatic now there is a lot of great language in this practice test which i have highlighted in the video and stick around until the very end of the practice speaking test to see what advice i gave her particularly for part two of the speaking test enjoy [Music] so this is the speaking test conducted on the 16th of april over zoom the examiner is eli hardy house and the candidate is noemi so good afternoon my name is eli can you please tell me your full name and what should i call you you can just call me amy no amy i guess no i mean i'd like to ask you some questions about yourself let's talk about this house what city that you live in have you always lived in the same town or city no actually in the past three years we moved twice already so in the first town that we were at it was also a small town like here what in the recent place that we were in um it's a cozy town it's like 25 kilometers away from the center the copenhagen central station um so it has like a country feeling to it so we like it and would you like to always live in this city um no um as our situation is changing um we plan to move to um another country and so it means that we will move to another city but i think our standards of um a place remains the same it should have like a country feeling to it so yeah let's move on let's talk about weekends do you wake up early at the weekend um no actually on the weekends we as a family wake up like maybe at eight o'clock unlike um on the weekdays where i wake up at 5 30 so that i can catch the train and get to work at seven o'clock yeah and do you like to have the same routine every weekend yes it's a nice routine that we have so on saturday we wake up we wake up at seven eight o'clock and then we prepare ourselves um for a virtual church gathering on zoom um we do that every saturday and on sundays it's either we are invited for a dinner or launched by our friends and acquaintances so we would like to continue that kind of regularity in our weekends were your weekends very different when you were younger um no actually it's not that much of a difference because um when i was a child we still go to the church on saturdays um but the the main difference is that before it was a physical church that we go to and now it's kind of online and isolated so i think that's the main difference on sunday i think it's much to say is there anything you would like to change about your weekends um i think that's a hard question especially for me as a person i don't like a lot of changes um when when there is like even a small deviation in in my routine i will panic a bit so for me i'm quite contented with my weekends and how we we do things on the weekends let's move on let's talk about singers do you have a favorite singer yes i have definitely um and of course i i am sure that you don't know her she is not really um a worldwide famous singer she is in the philippines and she is called sarah geronimo i really like her voice and when she sings it feels like there's an angel that i am listening to an angel you know that her voice is very i'm calming have you ever been to a live concert to see a singer unfortunately no i have not been oh now i can recall the the occasion where we went to a theater yes um i think yeah i i had been to a theater and we enjoyed that concert it's a classical performance um but i forgot the name i think is from other countries popular where you live sorry i i did not hear it was a bit choppy yes are singers from other countries popular where you live yes um filipino filipinos love singers from america especially um mariah carey um selena gomez and taylor swift i think my fellow filipinas they are um so in love with these singers and um there are a lot of singers in the philippines that try to imitate them and how they sing would you like to be a famous singer no never in my dream because i i love music but i think it doesn't love me um i i i listen to songs a lot and different kinds of genres also um but i'm consented with listening and i will leave um the the limelight to those famous people now in this next part i'm going to give you a topic and i'd like you to talk about it for one to two minutes before you talk you'll have one minute to think about what you're going to say you can make some notes if you wish do you understand yes i do understand all right remember you have one to two minutes for this so don't worry if i stop you i'll tell you when the time is up can you start speaking now please okay um i am a fan of green green spots especially in the cities i'm not really a city girl but in my situation right now i i don't have any choice but to also seek for those um green spots in the cities so we have these parks it's either natural and um man-made and i usually go there to relax um and when i go there i bring a book with me if i don't have a book with me then i just sit there observe people that are passing by um and observe what they do um and also i'd like to to watch how the animals are um are fed those those kind of things and um i find it very therapeutic when i go to these places it's coming it's good for my eyes and it clears my mind of any clutter i have um within the day especially when i am stressed um with work and um with um maybe maintaining a family so um i really love to go to these places um yeah uh sorry um do i need to really finish at two minutes yes okay so how often do you go to this park would you say um i go there when um for example i have a work a day off work and also on sundays yeah okay so now this next part i'm going to ask you one or two more general questions related to your topic let's consider first of all relaxation so you mentioned you're from the philippines what kind of activities do people from the philippines find relaxing um one thing that comes to my mind is the is that people just come out of their houses and sit there outside and then call the neighbors because i live in a in a small village and that's what people do there we just go out talk to our neighbors and that's our way of relaxing um where you live now in copenhagen or near copenhagen sorry is it different um the way that people relax the philippines and where you live now yes it's very different here we don't usually see our neighbors unfortunately but of course i would like to to talk to them and see them because i'm a person who really love to talk to people um so here when they relax people just go out to the parks um have a beer walk the dog things like that but in the philippines it's quite different would you say that the way that people relax is different when you're older and younger um of course it's different with younger people if you if we talk about them they seek um relaxation um in other things like playing games uh video games or for them maybe going to the parties is a part of relaxation um unwinding but for older people um putting their feet up and just relaxing in their homes i think those are the ways that um they they get out of stress you know some people say that nowadays we're a lot busier than we used to be in the past what do you think it is true uh that statement i agree with that and one of the reason i think is the advancement and technology um obviously some people say that this innovation would help us not to be busy but um in fact what is happening is the opposite because we now know that we have these machines and so we put more work um on this machine so that they could do it and to make the um task accomplished um so do you think that people would be better off if advanced if technology technology didn't advance at such a rapid rate um no i guess it's i'm not saying that um i think it just depends on how we use technology and our relationship to it i think in this modern days we just need to prioritize things we need to plan our day so that this technology will not get in our way of living um of course they are very beneficial beneficial to us but we make we also make boundaries we just use them if we need them and if not then um yeah we do away with them and what advice would you give to somebody that feels that technology is taking over their life a little bit too much and not giving them the personal space that they need um yeah i'm not sure if i'm the right person to advise those people um but i would say to them that i empathize with them because of course i live in the same generation where um these gadgets are ubiquitous and um it it is it easily gets on our way but i would tell them that i empathize with them and that they they will just do their best um not to be overwhelmed and make boundaries um when using this technology do you think there's much of a difference between relaxation and laziness [Music] i honestly don't know i think okay with relaxation i think it implies that um you worked hard before you do the relaxation but with laziness i reckon that you don't really do things at all like even beforehand so yeah that's what i thought so is one better than that yes of course relaxation is better than being lazy okay thank you very much naomi that is the end of the speaking test right how how did you find it um i was really nervous all throughout and i keep on thinking of my vocabulary my grammar um to the point that i am disturbed by it and so i cannot think and i cannot express myself well right interesting because i thought you know your vocabulary and your grammar was at a very very high level and i was very impressed and what we'll do in a second is go through some of the amazing vocabulary that you used um and you know i don't think you have anything to worry about getting at least band seven in the speaking test because in in my opinion and that's this is not reflective of the british council yeah you are well beyond band seven um and what we'll do look at each part individually so you're assessed on four criteria the first one is fluency and coherence and that refers to your ability to speak often at length without hesitation or repetition and of the four this is maybe your lowest school um and i think it's because you said you were consciously thinking about the vocabulary and grammar and and how not to make mistakes and so as a result your your fluency was a bit um hesitant but um you know i can see that you're very capable of doing very well influencing coherence almost you strike me as someone that might do slightly better if you've just had a conversation in english with your husband than your and a and then you go straight in and you you feel more relaxed and so i think just get getting into that kind of mentality might help you when it comes to the speaking now um you're capable of band eight for fluency and coherence in this test it would be band seven and maybe some cruel examiners would give you band six and i'll tell you why because in part two you really need to speak for two minutes yeah so one of the criteria of band seven plus is that the the candidate so you can speak at length without noticeable effort and what happened is you stopped and you you continued so that that shows that you can't speak at length without noticeable effort so so you might get an examiner that would give you six of that for that and that was only in part two because in every other part you were fine so what i'd recommend is just continue speaking and then the examiner will will tell you to stop and it's quite awkward because if you stop talking the examiner is just going to listen to go like this like i did and wait for you to continue i mean that's what they're instructed to do um and it just it will kind of throw you off your thought so just continue speaking and then they will tell you to stop at the end [Music] okay yeah can i speak yeah i'm just yeah it's just because i don't know really like how to divide like each point um but i guess um i don't really have to because when for example when when i finish everything the points to say something about the points each point then i don't want to go back again to the first point if i just have to you know sustain um yeah you know what i mean i know what you mean because you don't beat yourself and start all over again yeah so that's why i i just okay maybe stop and then i will just practice more so what i'd recommend to you know me is if that happens start to talk about the future so what you do is you say now look i'm about to move to the uk and i'm really gonna miss this park um i really hope i can find somewhere similar because it's been so integral for me as a place to sit down and relax and as soon as you start talking about the future you've got a whole new set of things to talk about okay i will take note of that yeah that's that's a good idea yeah that's a piece of advice that i've always i think is one of the most one of the best pieces of advice that you can have for part two because it just suddenly gives you a lot more opportunity to speak um the other thing that a lot of candidates do that helps them is to tell a story in in part two so for example if you're if you're talking about a park you tell the story of when you first went to the park um how you felt when you went there what you saw when you went there and then you start talking about how your relationship with the part changed maybe you met somebody while you were there and then you begin to elaborate on an anecdote a story about that part which gives you more opportunities to use different grammar different tenses and speak for longer yeah yeah tell the story okay and um in in the in so in english pro tips we've got these ielts speaking simulations and what you can do is just um you can record yourself doing these just to make sure that you can speak for two minutes as just some practice unfortunately no one will assess that it's just for your own record but um it's something that you can do to familiarize yourself with what two minutes feels like when you're speaking okay um okay so the next thing you've got fluency coherence next thing is lexical resource which is vocabulary and your lexical resource is astounding it's really good it started very good and it even just got better and better so in part one we had lovely collocations like cozy town a country feeling um physical church moving to online um content contented with my routine it feels as though i'm listening to an angel calming voice genre limelight then in part two we've got even we've got a lot of nice vocabulary as well um i'm not really a city girl but and then elaborating uh natural and man-made um and the way animals are fed so to feed in the past simple is a very nice verb and very unusual to hear so very nice describing something as therapeutic the park very nice clear my mind of clutter that's a very powerful collocation that can get you a very high score in for lexical resorts um [Music] and then in part three we had really really nice vocabulary unwinding putting your feet up um sympathize ubiquitous same generation overwhelmed and then reckon as well as a synonym for think so really impressive with the lexical resource well done yeah um and you know and i expected that from reading your essays as well i thought i'm i'm looking forward to seeing the vocabulary that noemi's got i think i am better in writing than speaking because i have more time to think and yeah but speaking it strikes me that you might be a bit of a perfectionist yes i guess so and maybe maybe because um filipinos are really like i mean my fellow filipinos i feel like they are very judgmental when you don't like speak good english they say it's like um they equal it to intelligence something like that so yeah and of course i want to get rid of that but still yeah okay well i mean i think you know this it's a double-edged sword because on the one hand it means that your your vocabulary is a very high level and you take pride in that and then the on the other hand it means that sometimes if you're if you don't feel you're doing well you you you start to stutter and you get a bit worried yes you know it has good points and it has bad points um and then you know one thing i really like about your answers is you had a lot of um a lot of natural linking words like oh i'm not sure if i'm the right person to ask but you know that that kind of stuff is really nice because you know you're being honest you're not so when when when ielts students learn linking words often they learn these set phrases that they want to use but they're not appropriate so they go oh that's a good question if you ask me i would say and it's not natural an example is examiners know when something is memorized and when something is natural yeah um because that's what they're trained to do and you're using a lot of these um linking words very naturally um like little things like i'm not sure if i'm the right person because you genuinely felt well who am i to give advice and that that kind of brilliant because that's you conveying your idea and examiners will definitely appreciate that um and then pronunciation is very good um there was like some sometimes there were problems with your sentence stress and that was you know sometimes when you started to stumble a little bit but um you know you're definitely at least band seven for pronunciation because everything that you said was uh very easy to understand and um at a word level yours your word stress is very good so it's all very clear and you know with with the right amount of luck you would um you would be able to move into that band-aid level for pronunciation as well so well done thank you um i guess yeah i'll be contented as long as i get the seven because yeah i'm i'm not uh i'm not applying to become a ielts expert or teacher so that i could get the eight and nine but as long as i can get seven um and i will be happy right yeah that's very likely i think you're you're setting yourself up well to get your band seven yeah i i also feel like i i don't need to be uh i should not be complacent because maybe it's only like the type of the test um that i will get um so i really hope that i can get a good set of questions also yeah yeah

Channel: English Pro Tips - IELTS Preparation

Views: 22,518

Keywords: IELTS Speaking Test, Practice speaking test, IELTS Band 8, Filipino band 8, IELTS Philippines, IELTS mock test, IELTS practice test

Id: ONRUXzJQJyI

Length: 28min 13sec (1693 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 11 2021