IELTS Speaking Tips: A Native Speaker Tells You How to Get a 9!

okay fantastic and we're recording what we're going to do today is look at ielts speaking and i'm going to talk to you about how to get towards ielts 9 maybe not necessarily in ielts 9 but certainly how to boost your score because there's a way to do it i took this test and while i was taking the test i had some ideas about how this is possible it because it's quite a deceptively simple task ielts speaking basically three parts let's have a look at what they are well the ielts say that part one is introduction and interview part two is called long term and part three is discussion but i think it's something different i think it's more like this part one is small talk part two you tell a story and part three you discuss big ideas if you think about the ielts speaking section like this it makes it a lot easier because this is actually what you have to do you small talk then you tell a story then with the examiner you discuss some big ideas this is actually what you do what does that mean well let's have a look part one small talk there's basically one secret here and that is to elaborate okay to extend your answers to not say yes or no but to say yes because no because etc you have to learn how to elaborate and extend expand your answers let me give you an example so when you walk in you sit down with the examiner and she or he looks at your passport and asks you your name and your candidate number or whatever it is very very uh simple questions then the examiner will say something like are you a student or do you work and you must elaborate do not just say i'm a student or yes i work you need to tell a little story here you need to elaborate is it you need you need to say well i'm not a student anymore because i recently graduated and in fact i've just taken up a new job blah blah blah blah blah you need to show off and that's what elaborate means it means to show off your language and if the examiner asks you where do you live you don't just say i live in melbourne no you say well i live in melbourne now which is a really interesting vibrant place to live previously i lived in a very small town so the contrast from the small town to the city is quite interesting you elaborate you extend you're showing off your language if things what will happen next is quite interesting because it will sort of go from a logical progression of questions like are you a student do you work where do you live then the examiner will ask you something like what's the most important place in your hometown and the conversation changes very quickly for example when i did my ielts speaking the examiner asked me are you a student or do you work where do you live and then she asked me do you like going to the cinema and i thought what why would you ask me that that doesn't make sense but it's part of the ielts they sort of you transition very quickly from some uh relevant questions to what seems like irrelevant questions but you need to think fast you need to say the cinema well in fact not really however my girlfriend likes going to the cinema so i often go with her personally i would prefer to just stay home and watch videos on netflix whatever that's how you answer that you need to be flexible nimble because the questions will change quite quickly and seemingly uh they will be irrelevant okay then so like for a question like what kinds of jobs do people do in your hometown again you elaborate you say well there's a variety of industry in my hometown including you know farming including factory work etc and you expand and you elaborate and you talk you answer the question but you just elaborate right part two i think is probably the hardest part it's called ielts call it the long term this is where you have one minute to prepare to speak for two minutes now you can think about it as the long term or you can think about it as telling a story because this is what i think you have to do is just tell a story and when you think about it like that it makes it easier but you need to tell a good story you can't just tell a boring story if you really want to increase your points you need to tell a good story so you need to embellish what embellish means is basically you need to lie now think of this the ielts is a test of your language there's no reason why you cannot lie you're not really in fact i would say you're not actually lying you're just telling a story you're just showing off your language and if you don't have a good story to tell well it will decrease your scores how do you tell a good story you need to embellish embellish means that you make a story more interesting by adding extra details that are often untrue in other words to embellish means to add untrue details this is fine you should do this in fact because if you don't you'll probably tell a boring story and boring stories won't get you the grades that you need there's nothing in ielts that say you're not allowed to lie it's not lying it's embellishing they're different you're telling a story and you're just adding extra details to your story to make it more interesting simple as that that's how you increase your score i should say that i actually got a 9 ielts 9 and speaking unsurprising i'm a native speaker but still these these tips work while you're telling the story because you have to speak for two minutes you also need to digress digress means that you leave the main topic of conversation temporarily okay what you're given for this this part of for part two is a task card with three dot points and you have to speak for two minutes on three or four dot points that's really hard if you don't digress so you need to temporarily speak about other things but still relevant things that's digression i'm going to give you an example i'm going to tell you what happened to me in part two so in part two this is the task card that i was given it says talk about a time you were recently angry and i thought oh my god this is very personal you should say who or what made you angry where and when it was how angry you were and explain whether or not it was resolved and if so how whoa i'm thinking to myself i don't want to talk to this woman about this personal experience of mine but then i realized well i can just embellish i don't need to tell the truth so i did it i made up a story i used an event which was relevant to this but i extended it i embellished and i digressed and i told a very interesting story that was not 100 true that's how i did it because i to be honest i didn't want to tell the ielts examiner about my personal feelings of being angry it was weird i think this is a weird topic card but anyway if you use the embellished thing you don't need to tell the truth you're just using your language you're demonstrating your language okay so i told my story and i went through each of the little dot points or the tasks on the card and i had a beginning i had a middle and i had an end right now i want you to try i want you to use this task card and i want you to tell a story okay and i want you to embellish the story i want you to tell innocent lies i also want you to digress so when you talk about where you got it from i'm sorry let's let's look at it first and i'll tell you how to embellish and digress describe something you own which is important to you okay let's say let's say it's a watch you should say where you got it from how long you have had it uh this should say who you use it for how you use it maybe i'm sorry that's a mistake how you use it and explain why it's important to you so what you might want to do is say today i'm going to be speaking about my watch which is which is a very important object to me now what i'm going to do my the story of my watch is very boring so i'm going to just create a story and i'm going to let my mind wander and i'm going to use good language to tell this story i got it from my grandmother who was a very interesting woman and she was an art teacher you can see i'm digressing i'm talking about where i got it from but i'm talking about my grandmother she gave it to me on my 21st birthday which was a very important date for me because it symbolizes growth into adulthood i'm digressing i'm talking about this still but i'm i'm digressing off the topic slightly but i will come back to the topic and that's critical how long have you had it i've had the watch now because i'm 32 for 11 years and in fact i haven't yet replaced the battery because i haven't needed to because it's a wind-up watch i'm digressing in fact this does have a battery i'm just using my language and telling a story and whatever thoughts come into my mind i speak and i speak them clearly and i speak them grammatically and it does not matter about the content whether the content's true or not that's critical so i'm embellishing i'm telling a story and i'm digressing i'm going off topic and then coming back to the topic because what you'll find is it's very difficult to speak for two minutes without digressing for this task right now i want you to do it okay i want you to describe something you own which is important to you you should say where you got it from how long you've had it don't worry about number three i'm sorry that's a mistake let me draw a line through this and i want you to explain why it's important to you i'm going to give you just 20 seconds to think about this then i want you to tell me a great story okay about something you own 20 seconds to prepare starts now i want you to speak by the way okay your time starts now i want you to speak for one minute and 30 seconds i will stop you three two one start [Music] that's 30 seconds keep going embellish digress that's one minute so i want you to speak for 30 more seconds embellish digress five four three two one [Music] usually you speak for about one minute 32 minutes the examiner will stop you don't feel bad if the examiner stops you it doesn't mean you're doing something wrong the examiner just wants to move on okay good i hope that worked i hope that worked you need to imagine that you're just telling a story to a good friend okay and you want to make this story as interesting as possible um let's just check the chat here okay fine let's move on whoops let me just clear my picture here okay you will then move on to part three where you need to discuss big ideas okay this is a discussion between you and the examiner and what you want to do is discuss big ideas you don't want to sound simple here you want to sound philosophical you want to discuss abstract ideas and i'll tell you why so here you need to elaborate as you did in part one okay you need to extend your sentences not yes no answers extend elaborate you also can embellish that's fine you can talk about things that are not 100 true it doesn't matter it's just a language test but you need to be thoughtful if you're not answering with thoughtful interesting ideas your score will reduce but what does that mean oops sorry what does that mean to have thoughtful ideas and how does that affect language let me explain i'll tell you about that okay here's the pyramid here's an ielts nine right at the top of the pyramid here's an ielts six in the middle of the pyramid and down here is ielts four three two one etc what's the difference well an ielts 9 speaker has abstract ideas ideas that are interesting and thoughtful and philosophical okay and ielts 4 has basic ideas that are not interesting that are concrete that are superficial not that interesting now what's the relationship between ideas and language well to have abstract ideas you need to use abstract language okay and to have basic ideas well you only need basic language and what you need to achieve in ielts 9 is abstract language less common language interesting language abstract ideas equal abstract language okay you need to have the idea first and the language will come and then describe that idea to the examiner this is how language works in your brain the idea always comes first then the language appears to describe the idea now what's abstract language well abstract language means that the the words that you use are less common and more precise less common more precise words and the grammar you use is more varied different types of grammar different sentence types but it's 100 accurate so words and grammar less common more precise words more varied but accurate grammar equal abstract language abstract language will lead you to an ielts nine basic language will lead you to an ielts four five or six max okay let me tell you what happened to me so this was my uh task card and the discussion leads on from the task card okay um the questions that the examiner asked me were how can you control anger and what do you think about the mind-body relationship now i understood that i needed to elaborate embellish and be thoughtful okay so when she asked me how can you control anger i did not say um i don't know you could breathe deeply no i didn't say that i talked to her and i discussed some interesting ideas i said well there are many different theories about anger anger control which includes sort of cognitive behavioral therapy or deep breathing or meditation etc but i believe that being angry is perfectly natural in fact i think being angry actually feels good i talked to i talked about some interesting ideas i said the expression of anger is fine as long as you're not hurting other people for example when i play sport i express my anger but only in the rules of the game so nobody gets hurt but i actually um i i'm struggling for the world here i express that aggression in the rules of the game so i talked to her about this okay are you i was thoughtful i was kind of philosophical i had interesting ideas and then she asked me what do you think about the mind-body relationship and i said to her no doubt i think there is a relationship between the mind and the body in fact when you're angry you can feel it in your physical body it's not just mental phenomena the body including the organs and the adrenal glands and i talked to her about biology and i talked to her about stuff like this so you first of all you need to have a knowledge background so you can have these ideas but you probably have that knowledge background in your first language you need to be able to express those ideas in english okay i mean this is that's what it comes down to you need to be able to have the ideas then you need to be able to express them anyway [Music] i want you to try now i want to back on this describe something you own which is important to you here are some discussion questions related to this and i'm going to give you some time and i want you to give me some thoughtful answers where you elaborate you embellish and you're philosophical you have interesting ideas on them don't give me boring ideas i want interesting thoughtful ideas question one i'm going to give you uh 20 seconds to speak about question one okay question one is what kind of things give status to people in your country your time starts now um okay that's i gave you 30 seconds maybe i'll give you 30 seconds um okay let me just check the chat here i'm getting a few is it okay to ask for clarification from the examiner if you don't understand the question yes that's fine you can talk to the examiner you can say sorry examiner what does uh what do you mean by status and the examiner will say well status means uh your rank in society so yes you can ask the examiner absolutely anyway question two i'm going to give you 30 seconds i want you to give me a very thoughtful interesting answer where you embellish and you die uh and you are thoughtful okay question two have things changed in your country since your parents time your time starts now five four three two one stop uh do you think advertising influences what people buy your time starts now thank you five four three two one and stop how did that go did that help you i hope it did i hope it did all right let's just quickly talk about what the examiners oh good aaron damn said it was a very short time 30 seconds was not long enough good aaron remember that part three is a discussion so you don't want to speak for too long don't go on and on and on i want you to speak meaningfully for as long as you can and then stop because the examiner will ask you another question so part two you need to speak for for two minutes but part three you're having a discussion however the examiner will ask you questions not you ask the examiner questions cool everyone else said that that was helpful so that's excellent right so just to recap before i talk about the criteria there are three parts to ielts speaking and i believe that they are small talk where you need to elaborate that's it just elaborate then you tell a story and you need to embellish your story adding extra details that may not be true and you need to digress you need to go off topic but then come back to the topic okay that's part two part three is the discussion and you need to be thoughtful you need to give interesting philosophical abstract answers because your thoughts come first and your language should follow you need to have high interesting thoughts okay that's how you get an ielts nine or close to an ielts nine let's have a look at the criteria now this is what the examiner is listening for while you're speaking four things first fluency and coherence i'll explain these in a second vocabulary grammar and pronunciation fluency and coherence means you speak smoothly it means you speak at a moderate pace not too quickly not too slowly you don't um you don't read you don't you don't read you don't read you don't restart sentences you start a sentence and you finish that sentence you really have has a has a has it you really hesitate and if you do it's only because you're looking for an idea not for a word over or grammar okay it's okay to hesitate if you're thinking because you're trying to find that big idea that's okay but if you hesitate because you are trying to find a particular word or grammar that means you're going to get into trouble fluency incoherence your sentences are well formed from beginning to end you structure your speech appropriately from beginning to end remember you're telling the story all stories have a beginning middle and an end you can digress but you come back to that story you develop the topics fully and appropriately that's what the story is about second thing the examiners listen for is your vocabulary you need to be flexible that means that you can explain your ideas using the words using appropriate words your vocabulary is precise some words are more precise than others okay you need to be able to choose and use words that are precise and here you use less common words when do you use less common moments when you're speaking about something basic or something abstract the answer is abstract when you're discussing big interesting philosophical ideas you naturally use less common words this means idiomatic language naturally and accurately it means your phrases the way you speak is not translated directly from your first language it's in fact sounds natural in english grammar you use a variety of grammar easily and appropriately so you're not hesitating thinking how to put that idea into a sentence it comes to you easily you speak accurately you are allowed to make the occasional mistake or slip that's okay even native english speakers sometimes make mistakes pronunciation what does this mean this means you are clear and accurate when you speak the words when you say the words what it really means though is that it's effortless to understand you that if i'm listening to you i can understand you without effort okay if i have to struggle to understand you if i'm sort of thinking what i i don't quite get that that's a problem [Music] your pronunciation should be effortless okay cool all right we'll go to questions in a second but what i first want to talk to you about is how to prepare for ielts this is how you get to ielts success there are one two three four five six steps along the way the first thing you need to do well this is what we do at e2language.com when you register or upgrade your account you get a personalized study plan consultation where a teacher like me will sit with you talk to you about your previous test scores talk to you about your language weaknesses and i will write you a document that will that will set the pathway for you that will get you going keep you motivated and get you to success then it's up to you for the next three steps because you need to practice your grammar vocabulary and pronunciation they are the building blocks of the language we have hundreds and hundreds of lessons on e2language.com to help you then you come across and you do the methods tips and strategy classes like this one here we have live daily classes then you must practice and we have hundreds and hundreds of questions on e2language.com that are exactly the same or replicate the ielts questions so that you apply your method your understanding of the methods to practice questions then you come back and you meet the teacher again because you've done a lot of skill building here and practice questions and you'll meet the teacher for speaking or writing or reading or listening and the teacher will tell you give you feedback expert feedback what you're doing right what you're doing wrong then we have live mock tests where you can actually sit under test conditions and practice doing an exam then you will be ready for test day okay here i have a a success story from one of the students on e2language.com in fact we have dozens and dozens of these if you read our facebook page you'll see that we are now helping almost getting up to hundreds and hundreds of people helping them to pass their exams okay cool let's go to questions if you have any questions please type them into the chat let's have a look uh okay irvy says if we use simple sentences in part two will the examiner cut my mark yes when you're telling the story you you don't need to use complex sentences but you should use a variety of different sentences you should use interesting vocabulary and you should use different types of grammar above all your story should be interesting your story will be interesting if you use good vocabulary and grammar so aim for interesting and let the language follow okay um arendem is worried about the the time for part two the time is you just just tell the story that's fine and for part three in the discussion just be thoughtful have interesting thoughts interesting discussions you have to remember that the ielts examiner sits there every day and listens to the same thing every day so if you have interesting thoughts you will get a higher grade because your language will be more interesting naveen has asked what should i do so that i don't freeze in the q card in in part two interestingly naveen i froze in part two when the examiner asked me about my personal experience of anger i froze and that's when i realized that it doesn't matter you just tell a story and in that story you can embellish you don't need to tell the truth because it's not about truth it's about using language so don't worry about freezing because you don't have to tell the truth you just need to speak and tell a great story cool all right i think we'll leave it there thank you very much for coming along tomorrow you will see jamal for listening so sorry reading tomorrow so make sure you tune in uh please if you have any friends doing ielts feel free to share e2language.com with them get them to come come across to the webinars and uh yes all good practice upgrade we will help you out cool thank you very much see you

Channel: E2 IELTS

Views: 949,471

Rating: 4.8835168 out of 5

Keywords: ielts, ielts speaking, ielts academic speaking, ielts native speaker, ielts criteria, ielts melbourne, ielts e2, ielts jay, e2 ielts, ielts speaking 9, how to get a 9 ielts, ielts speaking tips, e2 ielts speaking, e2 ielts speaking tips, examples ielts speaking section, ielts speaking test, ielts speaking tricks, ielts speaking sample, ielts interview, ielts learning, vocabulary, how to pass ielts speaking, ielts speaking e2, e2, ielts speaking practice, e2 ielts jay, fluency

Id: arrIPUa1V6A

Length: 33min 47sec (2027 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 23 2016