IELTS Speaking Test - Band 9 sample answer with native speaker Luke Thompson

hi guys its Keith from IELTS speaking success and this week I had the pleasure of interviewing Luke Thompson from Luke's English podcast Luke is a fantastic teacher and an even better comedian so in my series of videos native speakers do IELTS I put Luke on the hot spot and he does the IELTS speaking test do you think he's gonna do well on the IELTS speaking test listen in and find out [Music] I Luke hello Kay how are you today I'm good today very well thank you and listen thank you very much for coming to join me and those who are watching on speaking success it's really really great to see you here and to have you here it's a pleasure thank you very much for inviting me onto your channel I'm looking forward to having my English tested I haven't done the IELTS test for a while right I mean you've been in the English teaching game for quite a while right yeah it's been over 18 years now Wow over 18 years and during that time I believe you've taught a bit of AI else as well yeah I've done IELTS courses I did some one-to-one stuff and have done some group classes with IELTS you have done I've done my fair share right brilliant well today we're going to put you on the spot and we're going to put you to the test literally with the IELTS speaking test and see how you do so all of the the kind of the students will get a chance to listen to some very natural English and you were mentioning before that you're from the Midlands though you don't quite have the Brummie accent yeah I'm from the Midlands I've also spent lots of time in West London too growing up but yeah I don't really have a Midlands accent it kind of comes back a little bit when I go back and see my friends but normally I just sort of speak like this is my normal voice these days right I have the same thing I'm from Manchester and you would never guess yeah the accents gone there isn't gone yeah I guess living out of the country for so long mm-hmm right so listen Luke we're going to talk a little bit about more about yourself and Luke's English podcast later but if you're ready because shall we get into the into the test yeah I think I'm ready you think there's any chance that I won't pass I mean what you know what what score am I looking for is it like 7.5 getting to university or something 7.5 to get into University and yeah yes okay alright I'll do my best do your best don't worry just relax take a deep breath it's not just the English is it's it's also just like dealing with the exam tasks they can be quite they could be sometimes absolutely because you've got a you've got to do lots of things at the same time right you've got to get the idea you got to express it you've got to be fluent you've got to use some quite wide range of vocabulary and grammar and have really good pronunciation so like no pressure oh god how is it what about rambling is that ran behind upon definitely that you don't get to university if you ramble definitely no oh god this is going to be more difficult than I thought are you ever a boy oh very much so absolutely I'm rambler all around the internet you can officiate you can ramble in part 3 that's a guess to ramble so if you can keep your rambling instincts okay I'll keep it in check I'll keep it in check not the language I'll keep it in English I've got a English in check yes brilliant I'll say ramble now when you're relatively right fantastic so let's let's kick off so I'm going to do this kind of semi formally so it feels like the test but obviously not too formally mm-hmm so this is the IELTS speaking test taking place today I don't know what day it is I think is Wednesday the 11th of December the examiner is Keith and I'm here with Luke so could you tell me your full name please yeah my full name is Luke Thompson I do have a middle name - its Luke Daniel Thompson great so what should I call you you can call me Luke Luke fantastic so Luke in the first part of this test I'm going to ask you some questions about yourself let's talk first of all about your house so do you live in a house or a flat I live in a flat so it's it's part of a terrace terrace of the house Manian Terrace in Paris you know there's old house manian buildings all built by all designed by a man called house man amazingly enough so I live in one of those in Paris great what's your favorite room oh that's a difficult one I like the main room so we've got a main room which is like a kitchen dining room living room and it's quite spacious there's a nice fireplace so we can actually have log fires going in very cold nights and got the sofas in there in the kitchen it's nice to be able to just spend most of your time in there you can prepare food you can kind of miss around in the living room it's all bare it's a very pleasant place to be basically that's my favorite and is there anything you would like to change about that room yeah we need to put more artwork on the walls because we moved in well it's a year ago now but things move very slowly around here we haven't put up enough artwork so we're looking for pictures paintings designs and things that will go on the walls nice so I'm gonna move on and talk about languages next which languages do you speak must speak English and I speak some French as well I live in France my French should be better than it is but I do speak some French every day I go out to the you know to the bakery the boulangerie and buy my bread and sort of chat to people I meet in the street so I pick up my daughter from the crash and I speak a bit French there so yeah where French is coming coming along great and what are the common languages in your country well in in France or in England he ding gland in England the common language is well you know obviously English in its various sort of styles of different accents and dialects and things other accents well in the United Kingdom we've got obviously Welsh and is it's Scots Gaelic I think is the term for the for the language in Scotland and so there are a few and I think because we've got large sort of Asian communities like Punjabi might be spoken and various other bits of language mostly it's English though that's the majority and would you like to learn a new language well yeah I mean I really do need to improve my French so actually I'm getting more and more into it so I mean I should know as an English teacher and someone who helps people learn languages I should know a thing or two about learning French and you know I'm starting to apply the things that I say on my podcast to my actual life I've been reading comic books in French which I find to be very useful because I can you know follow the story there's pictures to make it easy for me and it allows me to kind of just focus on the language it's like get dealt out to you in nice little chunks rather than just plain text right it's quite nice to have the cartoons too you know I'd like to keep it simple sighs I'm gonna go move on now and make it complicated for you because the next big is the sky do you often look at the sky yes I do I'm life looking at the sky in Paris sometimes we get beautiful sunsets and it's it's fantastic to look out the window and you know see the sky there also when I'm in the countryside back home certainly in England I'll often be looking at the sky looking for birds because my family will all for some reason of bird watchers we love you know identifying different birds and things it's always interesting to have a sort of scan of the horizon wherever you artists to see if there's any bird life out there and it's often it's quite surprising the number of times you see some fairly rare and interesting birds just by having a look around and I said so yeah I'm often looking at the sky and do you know much about the stars and planets well I mean there's so much to know I know little things I know for example some constellations I know what Oh Ryan looks like I know what is it the Great Bear or the the plough is what we used to call it in my family and the North Star and some things like that but no not really I don't understand most of it it's incredibly complicated right good so I'm going to move on now to part two of the test okay so this is where I give you a topic you're going to talk for one to two minutes and you have a minute to prepare so if you need pen and paper you can grab some now look at that of you he's on the ball excellent so I'm gonna put this I'm gonna try and put this into the chat box so that you can see it okay now bear with me send that over send the chat over right sent over can you swim in oh yeah there it is yep okay no okay it must be in that I must be in a different chat this is exciting that is strange you've got it I've got it Keith yes so this is your topic right it's a good one as well it is describe a photograph in your home so I'm gonna give you one minute to prepare okay go free I provided okay so far I didn't I think you did pretty good okay so far not added to your rice I think you're on the way I think you're probably about level four by now so you're working your way up yeah pre-intermediate you propagate just into kindergarten maybe but yeah you'll be at university by the time we're in part three okay come on brilliant come on Luke you can do it I'm ready guys the first mistake all students make Renae yeah I'm not ready I'm not ready okay wait I've got five extra seconds just as bright so your time is up now remember you've got one to two minutes for this don't worry if I interrupt you I will tell you when the time is up can you start speaking when you're ready okay so I'd like to describe a photograph that's in my home it's a photograph of my wife and me standing on top of a volcano on top of a mountain I mean it wasn't a volcano on top of the mountain I mean that we were standing on top of the volcano which was also a mountain so we were standing on top of it and we've got our arms outstretched like this my wife's holding a flag in one arm I've got a sign which shows how at the altitude that we're at I think it was three hundred three thousand seven hundred twenty six meters up and this was taken by a random stranger on holiday in Indonesia so we were on the island of Lombok and Lombok has an active vault volcano on it which is known as rinjani and we were reading the guide books of stuff and we found this thing that you could do which is like a three or four day hike covering Jonny this sounds fun we thought so we kind of went for it and it turned into the most difficult experience of our lives it was kind of like you could make a documentary film about what we went through sort of thing and it was incredibly tough and hard going climbing up this thing is basically like climbing ups and as well because you kind of go two steps up and then you slide back again and in just very very tough you camped on the mountain started climbing at 2:00 in the morning and freezing cold temperatures when you get further up and the wind is whipping across and you're climbing up very narrow little sort of paths with huge drops down either side and it was extremely tiring but we made it to the top it seemed like the most difficult thing ever I mean it was seemed almost impossible to make it all the way up there but we managed to do it and the photo is there and now abyss this sort of mountain climbing experience has become the benchmark of like if we can do that we can do anything fantastic I'm gonna stop you there great thank you very much that was great good now okay side side note it's time to ramble we're going on to part three okay so in part three I'm going to ask you some more questions related to what we just talked about okay so first of all let's talk about photographs is it easy to make or to take good photographs it's easier than it used to be I think obviously now we've got smartphones that have amazing cameras in them and they do so much just automatically and you can apply filters and you can edit the photos very very easily it's incredible what we've got that I think your tips now whereas you know 30 years ago whenever it was even before digital cameras came in you know you had to the process of taking photos with film and then developing that film was just incredibly complicated but somehow very beautiful that the aesthetic of having a a an analogue photograph taken through film is beautiful but so yeah I think that I've forgotten the question oh that's right easy to make photos but that's that's my cue to cut you off and go to the next question okay do you think that people take too many far too many photos at parties not far tease of photos photos of parties instead of enjoying the party there's a bit to an extent especially these days with Instagram people are spending more time taking the photo of the thing they're doing rather than just actually doing it and living it you yeah parties you see people taking photos of the food and you can't eat you know you want to start eating the food but you can't because you gotta pose for a photo with everyone you know about to eat the food and you know that can be annoying so yeah I think so an extent sometimes people do take too many photos of parties rather than just enjoying the party yeah I think it's a feature of modern life and what you think of the advantages and disadvantages of sharing photos online well obviously the advantages are that you can share things so easily with your friends and relatives in other places like I have a whatsapp group with my parents and we send photos and share things all the time so that's a really great way to keep in touch with people it's amazing it's like you know we don't live that far away from each other but obviously the downside that those photos are subject to you know hacks and things like that and you could have your personal photographs distributed online somehow you don't necessarily have to control over your own image that you used to have any in the olden days copyright things like that you can put your photos online but people just take them and use them so there are sort of all kinds of problems a myriad of different issues arising from the the the digitization of photos and sharing them on online but I think broadly it's probably okay I think it seems quite good really right and would you say that photography is an art oh yeah absolutely yes definitely taking a great photograph is very difficult you've got to get all the lighting right and the framing of it right but also just sort of choosing the right subject at the right moment and you can pick something very sort of extraordinary I'm just thinking of you know photographing people that you get these famous photographs of like rock musicians and stuff and they're just sort of in the middle of doing something or something that captures the essence of that person yeah it's definitely an art form mhm and when are photos more effective than words when a photos more effective than words well I suppose when you just want to say something it's just a single image can some have broadcast an idea internationally in a way that words can never do like words are sort of secondary in a way that they they are there to as a substitute or a symbol of something but photographs are so much more direct in in they're sort of in in the way that they can communicate a message I mean I'm just trying to think of examples famous examples of this I mean I can't think of any famous examples at the moment off the top of my head can i I mean a photograph of 911 for example I mean that is so powerful and those photographs were distributed all around the world and so I think that humans have visual before or they are you know but they focus on the visual things rather than the language first you see it when you do a PowerPoint presentation if you put a picture up there people just immediately look at it so yes I think so fantastic compendious Trinidad okay again I rambling so much I don't remember the question the original question you've got it but that brings us to the end of the speaking test okay great it really I did it and it I made it all the way to the end you made it to the end you've got out of kindergarten you went into primary secondary school I think I'd get I'd let you into my university yeah really so do I get the I mean people are going to want to know now what what band score you thank you I mean you did shine in part two and part three definitely I thought I thought I loved the story in part two about on the mountain after I understood about the volcano being where the volcano was the story behind it was great it was it was nicely you talked about that not just the photo but what happened how it was taken there's kind of the story behind it was great I thought that was nice okay yeah and then par three a bit of rambling but some nice fluency I tell you what though finding the examples that's hard into getting your example like in the photo at the end yeah at the Empire I kept finding that I was you know I have a tendency to go off on tangents and you know that's of where's where the rambling comes from so I kind of go from one thing to the next thing and then I'm talking about photographs I couldn't remember what the original question was which I think it's a problem because you've always got to try a thinking the IELTS speaking exam and the writing you've always got to remember you must answer the question you always come back to the question as is nail it so I was I suddenly had this moment of stress of like oh my god you know need to bring it back to the question but what was it you'd forgotten the question I think that happens to a lot of people yeah it's really hard to stay focused right yes it is to give kind of structured answers and and we the I'm a native speaker I mean and I felt nervous during doing the test it's weird isn't it just the conditions someone as soon as someone tells you it's a test test test conditions apply something yeah and you start to kind of fall I'm being tested you know and that is it's weird it's weird especially because it's not even a real test right it's just it's even a it's just a model yeah but interesting where's the psychology I think you know I also there's a lot of psychology involved in the way you approach the exam and being ready for the sort of stress and unease that you will experience during the test it's very important to prepare for and I think that you know doing practice in timed conditions in sort of exam conditions trying to recreate the the level of discomfort and awkwardness you're going to feel when you're doing it I mean it's not very pleasant you know but it's worth kind of clearing stuff away and just focusing on what you're doing and timing yourself it helps to prepare for the stress visiting the test center before the test day so you know where it is you know those things - as ways of limiting stress I think those are good tips because I I totally agree I think one of the biggest problems is nerves people just crack under the nerves I've seen a lot of candidates who just get so nervous they they just you can almost see them sweating that they just cannot keep it together and it's really hard it is a psychological battle so I like your tips those are good on a kind of a very wide general note what kind of advice would you give English learners to to help improve their English and for IELTS maybe wow this is just there's tons the name is so much to say I think that yeah when you when you approach the learning of English just like any other language I suppose it can be quite overwhelming depending on where you are on the scale but it often like people get stuck in the intermediate plateau they might get stuck at around instead of a five or a five and a half or six or something and they really need to get up to that more advanced level of seven or something so breaching the intermediate plateau can be very difficult and you know there I guess it's just a question of the first thing right is that you've actually just got to do things just do something in English every single day just connect with English on a regular basis because it's about time and practice and just multiply time and practice and eventually progress will will happen it's you know it's just a question of just being with the language enough but that requires motivation so the first thing is you've got to just really really want it and you can't just want English for something else you know you can't just want it in order to achieve something else you've got to want to really learn to get a voice in English to find the rhythm of English and to actually want to learn the language just for the sake of learning it not just as a stopgap to something else you know so that's the thing you've got to find your personal reasons for really sort of getting into using the language and enjoying it and sort of several several ways there's the active approach and the more passive approach I think you've got to try and do both so in terms of the passive stuff it's you know all that stuff about language acquisition you know the idea that basically if you just expose yourself to enough language and you're into it you're really you know interested in it then it'll kind of rub off on you you kind of pick it up you can wear it as a part of a natural process so that basically means just listening a lot reading a lot and and finding things that you enjoy rather than just like I'll listen to the news even though I don't enjoy listening to the news at all I'll listen to the BBC World Service or something or I'll read the newspaper even though that brings me no pleasure at all you've got to try and find things that you really enjoy doing so and things you enjoy reading and and enjoy listening to and in terms of the active stuff it's basically the English is you know you'll remember that English is something that you do not something that you just know so you're going to focus on being able to do things rather than just knowing stuff so whenever you're learning vocab you've got to try and use it and be aware of things like how certain phrases fit into sentences so not just a phrase on its own you just got to be put into a sentence and then a sentence has to mean something and you've got to then use that sentence as well if you don't go through the whole process you're never going to learn it it's got to go in and out and back in again and and all that stuff so you know recording vocab make sure it's done with the right level of detail and test yourself as well speak to yourself just chat away to yourself how do you speak to yourself so just like so on I'm gonna be speaking to Keith in a minute so better get ready what should we what what shall we do no don't say will because that sounds makes you sound like Gollum from Lord of the hey what shall I do no also like I'm in the shower look there's there's the shower curtain and I've got some towels ready and so I'm gonna wash my hair you know just just kind of like get a monologue going it's very important it because the English has to come out it can't just stay rattling around in there it's got to be used right yeah so I could go on and sons of stuff that could be said it's a mix of active and passive practice I think that's great I think they're more the better I love the idea yes of us speaking to yourself because I think actually we all speak to ourselves even it you know our native tongues right we're always stuff going around in your head so maybe just switching that I'm doing it in in the other language I'm actually doing it out loud as well I know it's going to be talking to yourself it's a bit odd but actually it's it's fine it's a very good way to practice and to get your mouth around the language yeah and nowadays you know with the mobile phones headsets it's quite normal to see people walking down the street talking to themselves yeah yeah and you know ten years ago you might get locked up but I think today it's not too bad you can do it here's what people could do they could just record one half of a conversation right so just spend half an hour just recording one half of a conversation imagining what the other hunt side is and then they play that back to themselves with their headset while they're walking around and just have a conversation with themselves you know there's nothing weird about that nothing at all I'll it is it's great though but linguistically great yeah fantastic so Luke I mean tell us I mean we didn't really talk much about you at the start we jumped straight in but tell us a bit about you and what you do [Music] and so on so I'm a I'm a podcaster so I've got a podcast for learners of English some of your viewers might know about it it's called Luke's English podcast they do do they I've got a monkey I've got lucky Luke's English podcast mug that's the logo Wow how do we get one of those that's limited edition IKEA yeah they're not available anymore they're limited edition so if you've got yeah viewers if you've got one of these then you know eBay that might be worth oh six pounds seven so anyway Luke seat mr. podcast have been doing it for over ten years and basically the idea is it's sort of like a radio show for learners of English is something for learners of English to to listen to regularly and something that they can just kind of enjoy listening to it's just a person speaking to them on an in a normal way you know just on a normal human level rather than it being like a presentation by the British Council or the BBC instead it's just like you know someone just talking to you like a human and I talk about different subjects I teach stuff sometimes I have guests on there's a lot of stupid humor a lot of kind of comedy rambling and nonsense and also you know serious things from time to time so it's a mix of all that stuff it's basically supposed to be an entertaining thing for learners of English to to listen to in order to listen more you know listening listening listening you know we talked earlier about language acquisition and listening a lot it's important fantastic so how can people find you yeah so so probably the best way is online to go to teacher Luke coat UK that's the website or you can get my app on your phone which is just Luke's English podcast app just search the App Store for Luke's English podcast app and you'll be able to find it that's where you'll get all of the episodes and bonus stuff in the app and all that kind of thing otherwise just go to teacher Luke code at UK for the website and it's on iTunes and all the usual places fantastic brilliant that sounds great it sounds really useful because you were talking about that environment of English surrounding yourself in English podcasts are fantastic for that exactly in you can have one speaking into your head headphones like face as your earphones headphones whichever one you choose and it's you know it's just a nice thing you know people kind of riding the bus and going around walking around town and they're listening to English all the time I don't think it works as well I'm really happy with it it's nice you know I love podcasts I live in to listen to podcasts all the time I went walking when I'm cooking in the house is there something kind of mystical about this voice coming into your headphones there's no intimate really yeah I was saying this to a friend the other day that you never like listen to podcasts together you don't kind of gather around a podcast and listen to together it's only something you only ever listen to on your own really and so there is that sort of intimate connection between the listener and the podcaster which kind of makes it perfect for learning English I think what's your favorite podcast gosh I listen to loads I listen to a lot by the BBC so yeah interestingly Friday night comedy show I like I listen to the rap wrap up the week I think it's called which is a kind of a weekly wrapup of the week news the news that goes on a radar they say yeah the wheels yes I know the week from the Week magazine you don't listen to mark and Simon then Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo by any chance no you must listen to that it's fantastic what do they talk about it's film reviews ah but it's about kind of everything else it's not just about film reviews they end up kind of talking about all kinds of other things too it's an absolute institution in in the podcasting world you must listen to it still I think one of the most popular ones mark Mark Kermode and Simon Mayer's or Kermode and Mayo's film review I think it's called is that on the BBC yeah rious five Radio 5 5 Live I'm gonna check it out you see never livers would never listen to radio 5 that's the trouble I will check it out yes yes and I'll put the link in the show notes as well so everybody can can have a look brilliant what about you what podcast to you listen to mmm I think probably my favorite at the moment is the Adam Buxton podcast I don't know if you know about him again who don't know the Adam and Joe show was a program on Channel four and it was like very funny sort of sort of student he kind of art school comedy stuff right and then they then they went on to the BBC and went on to six music and add their own podcast and it was you know a big success and now he does his own podcast neatest interviews and interesting guests and he's great and although I'm a huge Beatles fan and so I just listen to tons of Beatles podcasts so my favorite ones these days are I am the egg pod which is just really interesting conversations about different Beatles albums including the solo stuff and also something about the Beatles which is like a extremely in-depth Muzo level discussions of everything the Beatles have ever done and then another one called nothing is real which is a couple of Irish guys who are also doing I can't get enough of just listening to people going on and on about the Beatles The Beatles how bizarre oh yeah it's just reality right yeah perfect it's perfect right well listen we I think we should wrap up it's about time thank you very much Luke again for coming on the shows brilliant at the show it's not a show is it some videos like it's like a show thanks for coming on the show is great to see you here and to do the test and for everybody listening well I'm gonna add some show notes and everything in some analysis of the language so people can listen to that alright thank you very much for inviting me onto the show no I tell you it was lots of fun thanks very much Luke stay in touch okay that was a blast thank you so much Luke for coming them on the show and also thank you for watching if you enjoyed the video please do subscribe turn on the notifications so you can find out about more videos and share it with your friends as well if you want to see some of the language that Luke has been using there are full notes on my website just follow the link down below and you can study and practice even more there that's it for this time thank you very much for watching take care bye-bye [Music]

Channel: English Speaking Success

Views: 141,593

Keywords: native speakers, native speakers IELTS, native speakers IELTS Speaking, IELTS Speaking Success, IELTS Speaking Test, IELTS speaking test topics, IELTS speaking test questions, IELTS interview, ielts interview speaking test exam, ielts speaking test band 9, examples ielts speaking section, ielts learning tips, ielts learning test, luke thompson ielts, luke's english podcast ielts, ielts speaking native, ielts speaking native speakers, ielts speaking band 9 native speaker

Id: 9Sp-_Uj6gUM

Length: 33min 41sec (2021 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 19 2019